Seems like a no brainer...

If someone offered me this choice...

Option 1- You can be sick for 20 years, but then possibly healthy for the rest of your life

OR

Option 2 - be healthy and vital for 20 years starting now, and then even more healthy for the rest of your life.

No brainer, right?

Why would you choose to stay sick and have only the possibility of health, when you could choose health now and forever?

And if you were able to pass this choice on, to give others the chance to choose one of those two options for themselves, how would you present it?

"There's these two options, pretty much 50/50 which way you might want to go. I'm not going to sway you either way."

No, I'd be saying - "look at what you can get! Look at option 2! I picked it, it's fantastic! You should definitely do it!"

Yet, substitute that choice of physical health with Jesus and spiritual life, and I feel like we are acting like the choice is not so obvious. In fact, sometimes I feel like Christians are selling the idea that being a Christian is more like option 1 - "Be a Christian. Life doesn't look much different to before - except you can't do the "fun" stuff and have to sit through church every Sunday - but you might get to heaven one day..."

Why are we doing this? Why aren't we shouting from the roof tops about this choice we made that gave us abundant life, now and forever!?

Maybe because we haven't actually received it. Consequently we deep down feel like really 'selling' Christianity as option 2 would be false advertising.

We haven't realised ourselves that being a Christian is option 2, not option 1. We haven't realised that the Kingdom of God is now, not only a dim, distant future. We haven't realised what the Kingdom of God being here now really means!!

That's not God's fault. It's not because we made the choice but then found it wasn't real. God is ready and willing to come through, and give us the life we chose.

A lot of us just haven't taken it yet. Maybe we think it looks too good to be true - to receive abundant life, with no catch. That's what grace is.

Receive Jesus. Life changed. No catch.

But until we realise the truth of Jesus, we're never going to sell anyone else on the idea.

And even more, when you do realise it - when you do choose Jesus and accept the life-heart-spirit changing gift of grace - you don't have to "sell" anyone. You won't have to convince anyone, make the best argument, throw in a few sweeteners to get them to 'buy'...

Your changed life will be the only thing they need to see. There won't even be a choice. They'll want that life and love that flows out of you straight from the throne room...

It will be a no brainer.

Love with action

I remember watching a man on TV speak about the organisation he founded, a non-profit organisation, caring for thousands of orphaned children around the world. I don't remember the name of the man or the name of the organisation, but what he said stuck with me.

He spoke about a child who died in one of the homes they supported. The organisation provided extra money to the orphanage to cover the funeral expenses and more. And yet four days later the child lay, dead, on a table. No one buried him.

It wasn't their responsibility, they said.

Sometimes it's not a lack of money that's the problem. It's the attitudes. No one buried the child because a dead child wasn't important to them.

The way to change the world doesn't lie simply in the redistribution of wealth. It starts with us; it starts with our hearts.

That's why it's so heart breaking when people have the attitude that one person can't make a difference, so why bother trying. Because it's not the money they don't donate that's the problem, it's that pervasive apathy.

Change the attitudes, and the money follows. Change our viewpoint, and the redistribution of wealth and resources will naturally follow.

What's your viewpoint? What's your attitude? It starts at home - how you treat the people around you, how you view the sick, the weak, the struggling, the lost. If you live all year thinking only of your own happiness and comfort and then send off a cheque to some far away place and think you've done your 'bit' - think again.

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:17-18


Make Lent about more than giving up chocolate. Make Easter about more than eating chocolate. Make your life about more than your own happiness.


Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Philippians 2:1-4


If the love of God means anything to you, what are you going to do about it?

What's motivating your choices?

No wonder we don't like exercise sometimes...a lot of the time.
What we look like eating cake...
 

What we look like exercising...
 

But we tend to focus on the instant gratification. Cake is instantly gratifying. Exercise is instantly painful. It's easy to see which one we'd go for - IF we're only thinking of the short term.
What about later on.
Choosing cake every time....


Pursuing a healthy life and putting in the work...

 
Now, you may never in your life actually go and frolick in the fields or leap along the beach with a giant white-toothed smile on your face. But there's a reason these are the types of pictures always use to represent health and happiness.
Because even if you're not leaping on the outside, it shows that energy and joy that you feel on the inside.
Now, your cake vs exercise may be something else:
Cake = alcohol, sex, watching TV, driving fast, dropping your clothes on the floor instead of the washing basket....
Exercise = waiting until marriage, tidying up after yourself, telling the truth even if it gets you in trouble, making time for God....
Keep the long term in mind. Eat cake - metaphorically or literally. But don't do it just because you're using it to feel better in the moment. There's a time and a place for "cake".