Every day, we wake up with choices. We can choose to sleep in or to get up early to do a devotional before we start our busy day. We can choose food that is healthy or food that looks really good but it’s not good for us. We can choose to pick a fight or to walk away from one. You get the idea. All of life is a choice. The first choice that really matters is to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. All other choices are secondary, aren’t they?

Once we have made that initial choice to serve Jesus and to put Him into the center of our lives, our other choices are affected greatly. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s a gradual change of priorities from choosing for ourselves and choosing things that would glorify Him. It isn’t always easy to choose the things that are “above” but it is the thing that we should do since we are supposed to be looking at earthly things from a heavenly perspective. Barbara Copperthwaite wrote in her book, THE PERFECT FRIEND, “If you’re not doing something every day that you’d be proud to put on your tombstone, then you’re not living right.” Think about that. Just ponder it for about a minute. So each day, we should be sharing a smile, encouragement, hope, love, friendship. We are in this world to be Jesus’s hands, feet, and eyes. We should look at things the way Jesus would see them. We should go where Jesus would send us and use our hands to do His work once we get there. That is not to say that we should neglect our responsibilities. Jesus would be the first to say that we should work and earn and take care of our families. But what we earn should not become more important to us than what we do with that money. A tithe belongs to the Lord and if you give more, that is the offering. That is one of the important choices that we make. As you begin a new day, think about the choices that you will make this day to serve the Lord and to show Him and His grace and mercy to others. In return, you will truly know that you are “raised with Christ.” Blessings for a wonderful day!