Choose this day whom you will serve

And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat. Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods… Joshua 24:13-16

We cannot serve both God and sin. We have to choose. We can’t have both. Each is mutually exclusive to the other.

We have to decide which one we will love – a choice between two loves. If we sin it is bcos our sinful flesh loves to sin. Then God asks us to love Him more than sin. It comes down to that, whether we will love Jesus Christ more than the passing pleasures of sin.

This may seem like a crude illustration, please bear with me: You go to Baskin-Robbins ice cream and you eye all the flavors. You only have enough money for one scoop. You whittle the choices down to two flavors, chocolate or raspberry. Which do you love more, chocolate or raspberry? You decide that you love chocolate more than raspberry and you buy it.

But you also like raspberry. You may have preferred to have both, but the reality you had to face was that you can’t have both, you are forced to make a choice between the two. You can’t love both the same. You have to love one more than the other insomuch that you are willing to forfeit one to gain the other.

The true Christian is faced with a similar choice. He can’t have Jesus Christ and sin. If he wants both then he forfeits Christ and loses his own life as well, a double strike out.

So likewise, any one of you that does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33

The Lord Jesus asked Peter (in John 21) whether he loved Him more than these, meaning, more than anyone or anything else. And Jesus was persistent in getting an answer from Peter over this, and He will be persistent getting an answer from us as to whether we love Him more than anything else.

Over the span of Peter’s life it became evident that he did indeed love Jesus more than anyone or anything else, and even to death.

And Peter is just like us in many ways, his life was not perfect, but he had to choose and he chose to love Jesus more than anyone or anything else, so we also can.

It comes down to a choice, and the issue is love (John 14:21-23).