Dear brothers and sisters, throughout our lives we have made many major and minor decisions. Some of these decisions have long-term or short-term implications that affect us.
I wish to quote three Bible examples when people made their decision to follow God.
Number 1 (Ruth 1:16)
In Book of Ruth, after Ruth’s husband died, her mother in law Naomi told Ruth to stop follow her. But Ruth replied, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” Even though, she was a foreigner, yet she decided to make the Lord her God. God blessed her and she became one of the ancestors of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Number 2 (John 6:68)
In Jn 6, when the large crowd left Jesus because they realized that he was not the political messiah they were looking for. Jesus asked his twelve disciples whether they were also going to leave him. But Simon Peter answered, "Lord, there is no one else that we can go to! Your words give eternal life. “. Embedded in this reply was a strong conviction that the disciples had in continuing to follow Jesus. Many of them followed him till the very end by giving up their own lives for him.
Number 3 (Joshua 6:2-17)
The third example is when the Lord commanded Joshua to lead the army to march around the wall of Jericho for six days without speaking a word. During the six days of silence, many thoughts must be on their mind since they could not talk with one another. They also could change their mind and start to spread bad word and influence others. They could say that it was ridiculous thing to just march around in silence and do nothing. But more likely, they were thinking about Moses’ farewell speech to them in Deuteronomy, Moses reminded them that the previous generation failed to possess the Promised Land because of their disobedience and unbelief. Now they had the second opportunity to enter. They must go in and possess the land.
When they persevered, God caused the wall of Jericho to collapse miraculously and gave them a mighty victory on the seventh day.
In each of these examples, God did not force the people to follow him. They must decide for themselves and they were blessed by God for their decision. We too must decide to follow and obey God so that his plans and purpose for us will be fulfilled.
