Decisions determine destiny. Every person reading this article is headed for heaven or hell. Neutral you cannot be! Sorrowful or sublime tomorrows by God’s grace and Christ’s Covenant are the forecast potential of every person. John, by inspiration, succinctly stated these sobering sentiments, entwined with a personal plea:

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof; but he that does the will of God abides forever” (I John 2:15-17).

People are daily either passing away through worldly ways to eternal punishment in hell, or, by making the Lord’s precepts his or her priorities, moving off this stage into that prepared place of eternal delights (Matt. 25:46). Picking proper priorities should be the preeminent pattern of each person. Your decisions determine Your destiny! Since the Gospel is God’s power unto salvation to everyone (Rom. 1:16), then be a Gospel guy or girl! The Master’s Message must make and motivate each man and woman (Matt. 4:4). As Lord Bacon wisely observed:

“It is not what men eat but what they digest, that makes them strong; not what we gain,

but what we save that makes us rich; not what men read, but what they remember that

makes them learned; and not what we preach but what we practice that makes us Chris-

tians. These are great but common truths, often forgotten by the glutton, the spend

thrift, the book-worm and the hypocrite.”¹

May every child and Christian cultivate priority patterns that travel life’s pathway by Truth, choosing the celestial over the carnal, the Divine over the Devil! A determination to so do is more pleasant for the present and prepares a person to enjoy his or her eternity (John 13:17). C.S. Lewis put it this way:

“I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a

region in Hell; and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning

a part of Heaven itself.”²

Who will you choose and what will you do today (Joshua 24:15; II Corinthians 6:2)?

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¹Theo. L. Cuyler, Golden Thoughts on Mother, Home and Heaven, E.B. Treat, New York, 1878, p.261.

²Albert M. Wells, Jr., Inspiring Quotations, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1988, p. 166