Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
It seems like the obvious choice. Yet, people prefer darkness and death. We prefer darkness and death. We often fail to choose life. Why? Choosing life means obeying the commandments which the LORD enjoins on us, loving him, walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes, and decrees. This means life! But our minds are darkened. It does not seem to us that obedience could mean life. It seems oppressive. It seems like anything less than absolute unrestrained and arbitrary exercise of freedom is something less than life. But we find that freedom like that is emptied of meaning, emptied of order, and cannot manifest life.
If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
Following the LORD means putting the flesh to death. This means that every time we are tempted to choose the false promises of idolatry we choose the LORD instead. Even though idols promise us pleasure, power, and security, they cannot deliver. Yet to choose against them means often means foregoing a short-term and short-lived pleasure in favor of the lasting joy of Jesus Christ. But ultimately, only the joy Jesus gives us matters. Only his joy lasts.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself
Keeping the commandments of the LORD is our best strategy for a life well lived. We can't do it on our own. But he wouldn't ask us to do the impossible. He plans to help. With him all things are possible. With him, commandments which seem to merely limit us become the source of limitless life.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
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