6 Scriptures to Guide Your Life

I was recently asked to think about the Scriptures I use to make decisions.

When I am uncertain about the next step to take what passage do I turn to for help?

The following 6 passages are key verses that I return to time and time again. Ephesians 5:15-16 is what I consider to be my life verse and has influenced me in my decision making many times.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I would bet that your list is completely different from mine.

That is okay.

This reality  is a reminder of how God works with us as individual people. God uses different Scripture passages to speak to our hearts. The key is to identify those passages that are meaningful to us and use them to build a solid foundation for our lives.

Don't Give Away Your Heart

{1 Kings 18:36-37; ESV}

And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

It is easy to give our hearts away.

Many of us do it without thinking. It is part of our culture.

We are encouraged to give our hearts away to all sorts of things.

This reality is seen in the die hard Denver Bronco fan who says, “I bleed orange and blue.”

It is seen in devoted fisherman who wears the shirt, “Fishing is life, the rest is just details.”

It is seen in the patriotic veteran who declares, “I regret that I only have one life to give to my country.”

It is seen in the love struck young man who tells the girl of his dreams, “I give you my heart.”

None of these things are necessarily bad.

The problem is that each one has the potential to become the most important thing in our lives.

Idols are often good things that we have given our hearts to.

I know we don’t often think that we have an idol problem. We don’t have statutes of wood, silver, or even gold that we bow down to and worship. Christians living in the West believe they are much too sophisticated to do something so silly.

It is easy for us to talk about how foolish these ancient Israelites were to give their hearts to idols. We see ourselves as much smarter. After all, we would never worship something that we had created with our own two hands. Our education has taught us that these things have no power.

In spite of this reality,  if we would take a little time to examine our hearts, we would discover that we are not very different than this ancient people. We too worship equally worthless things.

Part of the Gospel is the declaration that even though we have given our hearts to inferior things,  God still loves us and longs for us to return to Him.

In 1 Kings we are told that Elijah proclaimed to the crowd that God was the One turning their hearts back to Him.

He was the One calling people to Himself.

They weren’t looking for God.

They weren’t loving God.

But God was calling to them!

God continues to call to us. He still desires that we give Him our hearts.

We have guilt because of our sin. God is calling to us to return to Him.

We are discontent with life. God is calling to us to follow Him.

We experience constant pain. God is calling to us to find hope in Him.

We believe we are worthless. God is calling to us to discover our purpose in Him.

No matter who we are, no matter where we have gone, and no matter what we have done, God loves us. He wants our hearts!

God uses the guilt, discontentment, pain, and worthlessness to get our attention. He wants us to see how fake our idols are and the great love He has for us.

Think about the events surrounding Elijah’s challenge to the prophets of Baal. For three years it hadn’t rained in Israel. This was the mother of all droughts.

Don’t you think that many people in Israel experienced pain because of these circumstances?

Hunger and thirst couldn’t ever be quenched because there just wasn’t enough food and water.

It took these difficult circumstances for the people to begin to question the power of Baal and Asherah and to seek the powerful God of their ancestors.

God had to tear down their delusions before they would be ready to love Him.

When it was all said and done and the divine fire had consumed the sacrifice that Elijah had presented, God ordered the death of the false prophets of Baal. These men had to be destroyed if Israel was going to have a hope of being free.

This is where many of us are weak.

We have heard God’s call and realize the powerlessness of the “idols” in our lives.

The problem is that we are not willing to do whatever it takes to eradicate them from our hearts. We allow them to continue to live there. This enables them to continue to plague us and prevent us from truly giving God our hearts.

In order to be free we must carry out the death sentence of our idols. God will not exterminate them for us.

God desires for us to be part of His family and He is calling us to join Him.

We have to make a choice: we are going to give our hearts to God or  are we going to continue to serve our little puny idols?

Even today we must answer the call Elijah gave to Israel:  “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”  (1 Kings 18:21; ESV)

Who are you going to follow?

3 Actions for Making Wise Decisions

I believe that our lives are the product of the choices that we make.

 There are big choices which will affect the rest of our lives, and there are small everyday choices which set the direction of our lives each day. The big choices, like whether or not to marry, get much of the attention. However, it is often the culmination of all the various small choices that truly plot the direction of our lives.

 Since all choices are important it is essential that we have the proper foundation for making good choices. We discover this foundation in the Bible.

 “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” 

Matthew 7:24-27; NLT 

According to Jesus the foundation for being wise is Scripture. Remember the entire Bible contains the words of Jesus. The wisdom we need to make good choices comes from the Bible.

 This leads us to ask an important question: How do we go about laying a foundation of Scripture to build on choices on? 

 Looking at this parable Jesus taught we find three actions we must do in order to lay Scripture as the foundation of our decision making.

1.  We must LISTEN to Jesus. Listening implies an active intent on part of the listener. A hearer is passive. If we have healthy functioning ears then we hear the various sounds of life. Listening, on the other hand, requires us to focus, tuning out the other sounds, in order to hear what is important. It isn’t enough just read the Bible. We must come to the Bible with the desire to understand what God wants us to know, and how that word applies to our lives. 
2. We must BELIEVE Jesus. We can listen to what Jesus has to say, but if we don’t believe him then we will not apply his teaching to our lives. Belief in Jesus is what separates the foolish from the wise. The foolish will listen to Jesus, but because they do not believe who he is or what he says, they will not allow his words to affect their lives. The wise believe Jesus is the Son of God and the result is that they trust what he says. The choices they make are a result of this trust. 
3. We must CHANGE the way we live. This action step is the extension of believing Jesus. You have to first believe before you can change. Change is the application of belief. The action of change shouts to the world that we trust Jesus. Trusting Jesus means we will adjust our lives to his word. We will align our lives with his will, even when the choice means we will live in away that is opposite of the world around us. Jesus said the fool listens, but does not change his life. In contrast the wise listens and obeys. 

Every single day we are faced with choices. Many times we do not have the time we would like to consider all the options. In this fast paced world how do we lay a solid foundation that will help us make wise decisions?

We build our lives on the word of God, committed to listening to Jesus, believing Jesus, and changing our lives.

 Without this solid foundation we will be at the mercy of the changing winds of this world. With the solid foundation of God’s Word we are able to stand against whatever storms come our way.

Set Your Mind

We live in an information age.

The amount of information that is available at our finger tips through the internet is amazing. There is no library in the ancient world that can rival what is available online.

I am sure that our ancestors would be jealous of the tools and the information we have at our disposal. Many of them had access to only a few books, which they read dozens of times.

The problem we have with this constant access to information is that it can give us information overload. Much of the time it is hard to discern what information we should pay attention to and what information we should ignore.

Our constant online connection is like having a buffet available for every meal. Sure there is good stuff there, but it is easy to binge on that junk that seems tasty.

In other words, because of social media and entertainment outlets, our information consumption tends toward the junk food side of the buffet. The consequence is that the information that fuels our thoughts is just empty calories. It brings a little big of enjoyment, but it isn't going to change our lives.

Even though our ancestors had access to far less information, they were able to use what they had to develop a more robust way of thinking. They knew Latin, Greek, and could talk about different philosophers. They developed a philosophy of limited government and individual rights. They knew Scripture and applied its lessons to their lives. What they thought about not only changed their world, but continues to influence us today.

Always remember: Out thoughts determine the direction of our lives.

It is no wonder that the Bible has so much to say about our thoughts. For instance:

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2; NLT) 

We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5; NLT) 

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8; NLT)

To follow Jesus requires that we change our old ways of thinking. Transformation begins with changing the way we think.

Changing the way we think takes work. Our entire lives, you and I, have developed ways of thinking that have shaped the way we see the world. This means our thought patterns are second nature to us, we don't give them a second thought, but they are responsible for our moods and our outlook on the world around us.

We need to change the way we think! How do we do that?

Colossians 3:1-4 gives us a couple of insights into what we must do.

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.  Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.  For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.  And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. (NLT)

In this passage there are two steps we must take in order to change the way we think.

First, Paul told us to "set our sights", or to focus on, what is real. The reality that Paul wanted us to focus on is that we have new life with Jesus. Through our faith, repentance, and baptism we have been raised to a brand new life with Jesus. He is our life, the way we are to live. He is our life, our hope of what is promised to us. Our focus is to be on him. To change our thinking requires us to shut out what is happening around us and focus on Jesus. This is why worship, prayer, and Bible reading are crucial to Christian spiritual formation. These disciplines help us to focus on Jesus.

Second, Paul told us to "think about the things of heaven." The "things of heaven" are not gold streets and eternal life. The "things of heaven" are the values, the rules, the standards, and the morality of heaven. In short, they are the qualities that make up God's character. We think about these things and how they apply to our lives. Instead of basing our standard of truth off what the world says is right, we hold fast to what God has revealed to us. We think about His promises, His word, and His truth and let these thing form our world view.

Taking responsibility for our thoughts allows us to develop new and healthy ways of thinking. It gives us a chance to create a world view that is more in line with God's truth, and it allows us to live with hope and faith.

Failing to take responsibility for our thoughts means we will continue to respond to the world through the old thought patterns we have adopted. These thought patterns often lead us to wrong conclusions and cause us to spend our lives in ways that are not beneficial.

We can change the way we think, but it takes the effort to set our minds on God, His purposes, and His ways. This is the starting point of our spiritual formation.