The Right Choice Guarantees a Blessed New Year
What is the best way to begin a new year? I believe it is to complete the last one well, by making the right choice, if you haven't already made it. Christmas, in celebrating the birth of Jesus, was a starting point, not just a meaningless celebration of human aspirations. Jesus Himself was the best gift ever given, an incredible gift. God took on human flesh, lived sinlessly, and died undeservedly but willingly. He thereby arranged that He could be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). Verse 23 is clear: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” No time of the year demonstrates this more plainly than this one, when various contrary views trumpet their claims. Some attack Christmas and everything Christian. Some attempt to find meaning in pleasant, inspirational stories, increasingly desolate in their emptiness every year. Still others decorate their greed and materialism in pretty lights and often disappointing traditions. Then follows “Happy New Year!” with soon-to-be-broken promises to do better, because the choices they keep making lead only to frustration.
Only One Real Choice
A Sonnet to God’s Loving, Sacrificial Grace
by J. Roger Wilson, ©December, 2006
“You’d better watch out!” ole Santa says, but Mama said it, too;
O’er all the weary world, it’s true, your sins must pay a price.
Unless you’re good, yes very good, your earned rewards are few.
Hope is more a wishful dream, “Watch out!” just bad advice.
Atheists have another scheme; they say, “Have no fear!”
Vice and virtue are the same, no absolutes remain.
Each one of us is our own god—that’s their message clear,
And any hope of something more, of faith in god, is vain.
Countless millions risk their souls for choices bad or none.
How many think, “I’m good enough,” to please a perfect God?
Others offer holy rites, have holy wars begun…
Ignorance or zealotry or unbelief is fraud.
Christ the Lord, our one true Way—He died for hope assured.
Everyone who chooses Him will live, by His grace, His word.
On Christmas Eve, as I sat in the small rural church where my family has gone since I was in the third grade, this poem flowed forth, almost inspired. My thoughts focused on the contrast between three options from which each person must choose; I don’t believe there are any other alternatives. Apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, religions require perfection—sufficient good works or rites to satisfy God—or, lacking flawlessness, the empty hope that their imperfect lives will be “good enough.” Of course, secularists offer no hope beyond this life; their conviction relies on the wish that no god will call us to account for “man’s inhumanity to man.” The third choice, the only choice worth making, is that the true and the living God, Who designed and created all things including humans, is our Loving Father, Whose wisdom leads us in the best ways to live. Disobedience has immediate consequences, as it did with Eve and Adam—shame, guilt, and death. No course of life is sinless enough to repair the original blunder; no one is “good enough” to satisfy the God who defines purity. However, in making the right choice, we rely, not on ourselves, not on wishful thinking, but on the Divine One who gave His perfect, human life to satisfy the just requirements of our Righteous but Loving God. This choice is to trust God, not ourselves or our limited understanding of reality. This leads to a kind of belief, a “faith” that is “the assurance of things anticipated, the conviction of things not seen,” according to Hebrews 11:1.
My wish is that your new year is built on the wise choice. My education included both science and theology, and I have found abundant evidence to support my choice and little to contradict it. I have also found that life lived in faith and genuine hope builds confidence as God works in my life. This life isn't perfect, but then it isn't supposed to be. Here is only temporary; what comes after is forever excellent. My choice continues to help make sense out of life...Does yours?
Only One Real Choice
A Sonnet to God’s Loving, Sacrificial Grace
by J. Roger Wilson, ©December, 2006
“You’d better watch out!” ole Santa says, but Mama said it, too;
O’er all the weary world, it’s true, your sins must pay a price.
Unless you’re good, yes very good, your earned rewards are few.
Hope is more a wishful dream, “Watch out!” just bad advice.
Atheists have another scheme; they say, “Have no fear!”
Vice and virtue are the same, no absolutes remain.
Each one of us is our own god—that’s their message clear,
And any hope of something more, of faith in god, is vain.
Countless millions risk their souls for choices bad or none.
How many think, “I’m good enough,” to please a perfect God?
Others offer holy rites, have holy wars begun…
Ignorance or zealotry or unbelief is fraud.
Christ the Lord, our one true Way—He died for hope assured.
Everyone who chooses Him will live, by His grace, His word.
On Christmas Eve, as I sat in the small rural church where my family has gone since I was in the third grade, this poem flowed forth, almost inspired. My thoughts focused on the contrast between three options from which each person must choose; I don’t believe there are any other alternatives. Apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, religions require perfection—sufficient good works or rites to satisfy God—or, lacking flawlessness, the empty hope that their imperfect lives will be “good enough.” Of course, secularists offer no hope beyond this life; their conviction relies on the wish that no god will call us to account for “man’s inhumanity to man.” The third choice, the only choice worth making, is that the true and the living God, Who designed and created all things including humans, is our Loving Father, Whose wisdom leads us in the best ways to live. Disobedience has immediate consequences, as it did with Eve and Adam—shame, guilt, and death. No course of life is sinless enough to repair the original blunder; no one is “good enough” to satisfy the God who defines purity. However, in making the right choice, we rely, not on ourselves, not on wishful thinking, but on the Divine One who gave His perfect, human life to satisfy the just requirements of our Righteous but Loving God. This choice is to trust God, not ourselves or our limited understanding of reality. This leads to a kind of belief, a “faith” that is “the assurance of things anticipated, the conviction of things not seen,” according to Hebrews 11:1.
My wish is that your new year is built on the wise choice. My education included both science and theology, and I have found abundant evidence to support my choice and little to contradict it. I have also found that life lived in faith and genuine hope builds confidence as God works in my life. This life isn't perfect, but then it isn't supposed to be. Here is only temporary; what comes after is forever excellent. My choice continues to help make sense out of life...Does yours?
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