Everyone stands at crossroads at multiple times in their lives. The cross road represents that moment when we must make a decision, not just any decision, but one that will actually alter our lives and the lives around us significantly. The time that you came to receive Jesus Christ, if you have, was one of those times, but everyday we are presented with the choice to follow Christ or turn back. Everyday we are presented with a moment in which we may die and yet live with Christ or simply live and sow to ourselves. Life comes with decisions. When we choose what we believe to be the truth we stand at a crossroad because that choice is one in which we take a stand for and against something; the Truth verses a lie. Jesus is the Truth and our enemy, Lucifer, is the father of lies.
Choose today what you will believe, and tomorrow and the next day and the next. Yesterday's choices about what we will believe will only suffice for yesterday because each day comes with it's own trouble and new choices. People of God are people who live by faith (belief) and not by sight (feelings or emotions). When we give in to our feelings and ever changing emotions we are placing ourselves as clay in the hands of an enemy that has no intention of making us holy before God. Lucifer's intentions are only this, but to kill steal and destroy us. The faith that we must choose to live by is the very Word of God, which became flesh and lived among us as Jesus Christ Himself.
Life comes with many questions and sometimes we find the answers difficult to uncover, but when we turn to scripture and begin to find the answers revealed to us then we find ourselves at a cross road. We always have a choice as to what we will believe. That is a gift from God but it is one for which we must assume responsibility. Sometimes we look for answers having already decided in our hearts as to what they should be and then when we find the answers from scripture do not match up or agree we are required to do one of two things; 1. we can choose to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to mirror what scripture declares to be the truth or 2. we can close up scripture, reject the answers we find in it and any advice from anyone who would lean upon those answers, and decide to simply believe what we want or what works for us in our present condition. I submit to you today that there is a right road and a wrong road to choose at this crossing. There is an absolute truth. Because God, who has set life and death before each one of us, is the creator of all things, He determines what is right and wrong. He determines what leads to life and what leads to death. He determines what is sin. God has not only revealed these things to us in scripture but has confirmed the reliability of scripture through miracles, signs, and fulfilled prophecy to the degree of 100% accuracy to date. There is nothing on earth that is more sure and reliable than God's holy Word. There is no friend whose words are more truthful and no one whose answers are more holy and righteous.
There is something that people do when they are hurting that is very common. They tend to try to figure things out on their own FIRST. They tend to try to understand why they are in turmoil and why they struggle endlessly based on what they have learned or know or have PERCEIVED in the past. That is not based on faith, it is based on experience (sight). But God's desire for us is that we will come to Him and find Truth. He does not want for us to struggle or live in endless turmoil so He has provided simple answers in the Word of God for us. They are simple because they are straight forward. The trouble and the struggle begins when we reject what God has simply told us in scripture and begin to try to be holy and maintain sin at the same time. We want to be right before God and to do good, but we also want to continue doing or being what we have already condoned within ourselves regardless of whether God has rejected it or not. It is as if we are telling God that we have greater mercy than He does because we can live with both a picture of holiness and the reality of sin in our lives at the same time and since our way seems better to us we take that way. But then something uncomfortable begins to happen. We begin to struggle and suffer both within ourselves and in the world. Why is this? Because God and the world are always at war and when we attempt to live with one foot in both we ourselves are caught up in that war. If what we are really seeking is right standing and peace then the only true way is to assume God's way even if it goes against what our flesh desires. Eventually the flesh will conform, unless we continue to feed it. Even though God's way may put us at odds with others, He provides peace through Christ Jesus unlike the peace of this world. It is a peace that exist through trouble and pain and rejection from others. But if we assume the ways of the world and what the world (or our flesh) condones then we may be at peace within the world and even within the warring members of our own flesh, we are not at peace with God which overwhelms everything else. Worldly peace only deadens our hearts until the day of judgement when peace for the lawless will not be found. God's way is the best way, always.
Scripture can be trusted and sin can be overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit, working in and through us. In order for this to become a reality we must make a very important decision at the crossroad. Continue trusting in God and His holy precepts or find my own way? There is only one way and that way is Jesus. Jesus will be discovered in the Word because He is the Word made flesh. Being at odds with scripture is a dangerous place for a believer. If you have already made a wrong decision at such a crossroad as this, good news, you are NOW standing at another one. Choose again, this time, choose wisely.