Make a Decision, set Yourself Goals and be Achiever!

No matter how old you are, you will always have to make decisions in life, sometimes little ones and other times big and important ones. The decisions you make right now- will influence or determine your future. Oftentimes your decisions will even affect the future of the people around you, because there is not much we do exclusively for ourselves.

Although all decisions are to a certain degree important, there is one which is most important of all. It is the one which will determine whether you will live eternally, or whether you will spend your years only here on earth-and that’s it.

This means you will have to decide whether you want to follow Christ, the one and only, who has made it possible for you to have eternal life. A life with no disappointments, no pain, and no problems whatsoever, but filled with love and joy, peace, and pleasures that “eyes have not seen and ears have never heard of, neither has entered into the mind of mankind.” This is what the Bible says and you can believe it.

Then there is the alternative, which is to follow Satan, Christ’s enemy. He offers pleasures too, but they are so little and so short compared to the everlasting ones of heaven, and if you look towards the end, all of his pleasures end up in misery. He knows that this is all he has to offer, even for himself and millions of others. So he takes the misery and wraps it into an attractive little package, hoping you will fall for it. You will soon find, however, that in reality he gives you shameful little and at the same time takes everything away from you which is rightfully yours.

Why does he try to fool you? Because he doesn’t want you to have what he has lost. He is the one who knows how wonderful it feels to live in the presence of God. He has been there. He felt the unsurpassable love of the heavenly Father, of the Son Jesus Christ and of all the angels. He experienced first hand the fullness of the pleasures of heaven and yet, a long time ago, he had made the decision to give it all up. What a mistake!

Satan knows only too well that he is never allowed in heaven, or in the presence of God again and his heart is filled with resentment and anger more than ever before. Now, all he has to look forward to is his own fabricated misery. He gets enraged with everyone who keeps the commandments of God and who has the testimony of Jesus, and with those who have made up their mind to claim the promise to sit with Christ on His throne. A privilege which he had decided to give up so long ago and therefore is not willing to grant others to have it either. Christ is exactly the opposite. He wants to share everything He has. He worked hard to make it possible for all of us to be with Him for eternity. He said to His Father: “Father I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which you have given Me; for you loved me before the foundation of the world.” John 17:24. This was Christ’s goal. This is why He left heaven, that wonderful place, and came to this sin-sick world. This is why He became “a Man of Sorrows” so we might be made partakers of everlasting joy. This is why He died for us as a young man of 33 years of age. He not only died for us, but also lived for us.

Whenever Jesus was tempted by Satan to give in, He stayed firm because He thought of His goal, which was to save mankind from sin. Whenever He felt like giving up, He thought of His goal. Whenever He could have made His life on earth a little easier, He did not, if it meant losing sight of His goal. Whenever He was mocked or tortured He did not talk back, or get angry, or give up, or think about Himself. He thought of His goal; He thought of us!

If we let our mind wander back to the time of the Old Testament and think about Joseph, when he was employed at Pharaoh’s house, when he was tempted by Pharaoh’s wife; in that moment he thought of his goal. His goal was to do only and always what is right before God. He wanted rather to have peace with God, than peace with men. Because of that decision which he made in the time of crisis, years later he was able to save his family from starvation. Not only his family, but a whole nation. He became a great man, an achiever in life. (Read the story in Genesis 39 to 45).

We have an example in Moses. His goal was to lead the people of Israel right. Nothing else mattered. He even asked God, rather to blot out his own name from the book of life, but have His people saved. “He was willing to surrender his own life, if that would serve to atone for their sin.” Exodus 32:32-33. What a commitment!

If we look at his end, which was really his new beginning, he was loved and accepted by God so much, that He took him away from the earth to be rewarded with everlasting joy. “But since then there was not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.” Deuteronomy 34:10. Was it worth it for him to stick to his goal? Oh yes it was!

Then there was Job. He had God as a friend and he trusted Him. His goal was to trust in God no matter what happens. He would not allow anything in life to separate him from his heavenly friend. All his so-called friends, and even his own wife, told Job again and again that God is not interested in him, and that he should give up on his God. But Job made his decision, he stuck to his goal and became an achiever. Read Job 42:10-17.

Then there was Daniel and his three friends. Their goal was to serve the Lord, even if it meant death for them, and they also became great men in their time. There are so many more people who have become great in this world, because they’ve had goals and made the right decisions.

But there are so many other people who have had the same commitments, the same goals and also made the right decisions, yet their names are not written in the Bible, nor can we find them in any other book in this world. Their names are written in the book of life; which is all that matters.

None of them had an easy life. “You don’t fall up a mountain, you have to climb up.”
You need goals too. Every decision which you will have to make in the future, make it in such a way, that it will bring you one step closer to the direction of your goal, one step closer to Jesus.

If we can’t make the decision whether we want to follow Christ or Satan, or just to sit on the fence, then I think it is important to know that the decision will be made for us. In this case not making a decision is making a decision. If we don’t make up our mind to love and follow the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul and all our might, then we have decided to give up on eternal life. Deut. 6:4-9.

We know that God is a jealous God. Exodus 20:5. He doesn’t want to share us with Satan. Not because He is selfish, no, but because He can not allow the new earth, which will last forever, to be polluted again with sin. We know that Satan is the cause of sin and along with sin comes all the misery, the pain, the tears, the disappointments, the heartachesand all kinds of weaknesses and sickness. If God would allow anyone, who refused in this life to separate from sin and Satan, to live on the new earth, all the misery would spread and continue eternally.

But because God is a loving God, He will not allow His people to go through pain all over again. He wants to start anew. This is God’s goal. No more sin, not a trace of it.

I think this is only fair towards all those who have made the decisions to give all to God, who have accepted Jesus in their heart and who are prepared to accept His help to fight for the good and separate from evil – until the end.

Make it your goal in life to create a friendship with God and Jesus Christ. It is so much easier to go through life with a real friend. Make your decision, and be an achiever. Amen

Don’t let the destiny of your life depend on an uncertainly, but rather depend on Jesus!