The Right Choices

Here’s another solid teaching from Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

The Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict (Galatians 5:16, 17, NLT).

Dear friends:

About to open wide, with the menacing drill lowering toward his mouth, a man humorously pleaded with his dentist, "Careful, doc, I can stand anything but pain."

We Americans are especially notorious for avoiding pain at all cost. By nature, every one of us is inclined to take the path of least resistance. The dentist usually injects us with Novocain to keep us from feeling any pain, but we don't like the injection needle because of its momentary sting.

We look for easy exercise programs that won't make us perspire too much or get too tired. Students shortcut their assigned reading by reviewing study notes.

And diets? There always seems to be a new fad for shedding weight without hunger or exercise! Liquid diets, banana diets, carbohydrate diets, protein diets, grapefruit diets, and the list goes on and on and on.

When it comes right down to the basics, we do not like hard work. Even in those areas that we recognize are in our best interest, such as with exercising, dieting, and studying, we avoid developing disciplines to help us.

This is especially true when it comes to the spiritual discipline of prayer. We desperately need prayer, yet many desperately avoid it. What a paradox! All of us would acknowledge the critical importance of regular fellowship with God. But as I travel around the world and speak to Christians everywhere, I meet very few who express a natural inclination for prayer.

That is probably because prayer is not natural, at least for our fleshly, or sinful, nature, even though our spirit, wooed by the Holy Spirit, yearns for communion with God. "The Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict" (Galatians 5:16, 17, NLT).

That translation speaks of "your choices." That is where the battle lies. By faith, we must "choose" to pray. By faith, we must choose to fast. By faith, we must choose to obey God, even though our natural selves may not "feel" like it.

The Bible says, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature" (Colossians 3:5, NIV).

We must not be governed by our feelings, which are deceiving. By faith, we must choose to obey God's Word and pray -- not only pray, but let us "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 6:17, KJV).

Yours for helping to fulfill the Great Commission
each year until our Lord returns,

Bill Bright