The Choices You Have Made
A guest post by Chase Green.
In the 2003 faith-based movie Flywheel, there is a scene in which the film’s main character, an unprincipled used car salesman, is flipping through the television channels and stumbles upon a preacher who stops him in his tracks.
I thought that the following words from the sermon were particularly humbling for all of us:
“You’re in the shape you’re in today because of the choices you’ve made. Your marriage is in the shape that it is in today because of the choices you have made. Your relationship with your wife and your children is in the shape it’s in because of the choices you’ve made. You’re in financial bondage today because of the choices you have made. And until you listen to the Word of God you will make the wrong choices, go down the wrong road, lose your family, lose your home, lose your security, lose your investments, because God has a way to live life, and you and I cannot live life on our terms and ask God to bless that. And the reason that many people … are in bondage and in frustration and in defeat is because you don’t really want to know what God says. And you don’t want to live it God’s way.”
Without spoiling the movie too much, it was at this point that the main character throws his television remote across the room in disgust. Yet, after a dramatic pause, it is the preacher’s final words that seem to strike a chord in the main character’s heart:
“If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. All things (not some things) have become new.”
Of course, you would have to watch the movie to see the changes that the main character makes in his life, but upon reflecting on these ideas, my mind goes to a particular passage in the book of Joshua.
Perhaps the most famous words of Joshua are recorded in Joshua 24:15:
“And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Are we making that choice today? Are we deciding for ourselves and for our families that we will serve the Lord with a whole heart, come what may?
If not, why not?
There is no better time to start than today.
“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).
Chase Green is a good friend that I spent some time with in preaching school - he graduated in the class before me. Chase preaches for the Marietta Church of Christin Marietta, Oklahoma.
Chase hosts the Everyday Christian podcast with the Scattered Abroad Network. Chase has recently started writing on Substack about his family’s travels to national parks. Read more at Park Stars.
