Choose this day whom you will serve.
As for me and my house,
we will serve the Lord.
Joshua 24: 15 (NIV)
As we go through life we make choices- how we will live, what we believe, with whom we will hang out, how we will dress, how we will make our living, and where we will live. Joshua spoke to the people of Israel. He explicitly told them where He stood. He was going to follow the Lord.
In 21st Century life, we see people being exploited because of their gender, abused because of their age, and mistreated because of some assumptions made by others. We see businesses ignoring the needs of their employees for the sake of the profit margin.
The banking world caused such a blow to the real estate market that we see homes sitting empty for years. We see corporations build new stores, leaving the former locations empty to deteriorate to the place that any future owners would have to expend large amounts of money that either come off their taxes or that expense gets passed onto the consumers who frequent that new business.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we have to weigh our personal beliefs against what we see in our world. Does how we transact business reflect God in our dealings with others? Is God honored with what we say or do? Should we evaluate how we respond to those who wait on us? Could we do better in certain areas of our communication with people? Are we truly striving to bring others to Christ by our witness?
I heard a preacher say once that the little choices add up to make lifestyle changes. That's both encouraging and scary!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the well-thought-out post,
Jen
Jeanette:
ReplyDeleteThank you for your input. And thank you for the beautiful compliment.
Great post, Cecelia. It's amazing how that line gets blurred so easily, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSarah:
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. You are right the line between honoring and dishonorning God has become so blurred that it takes a person of strong faith to recognize where the line is.