Message Magazine’s Online Devotional for Sabbath, May 7, 2016
Today’s Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
We are focusing on sin recovery principle number three of 12: “We have decided to submit our wills and lives wholeheartedly to God.”
While not all of us have been addicted to drugs or alcohol, all of us have been addicted, at some time or another, to sin. We each have exercised our free wills and made conscious decisions to serve ourselves, to serve sin. We may have harbored unforgiving feelings, had the love of money, doubted God’s love for us, or harbored some secret habit that seemed it would never loosen its grip.
The blessing is that as easily as we have become addicted to sin, God can give us new minds so we can become fixated on life. When we surrender our thought lives to God and allow Him to take complete control of us, we learn to choose life over death. We learn that there is no temptation God has neglected to give us the power to overcome. We learn that there is no infraction, big or small, that others can commit against us that we will not forgive. We learn that choosing life over death is not merely about overcoming bad habits, but finally being able to see or God for the loving, gentle Father He is. We finally learn the utter futility of pursuing fleeting earthly pleasures and embrace the blessing of eternal life with all the saints and our God, who gave all so we could choose life.
