Read an Excerpt
Choosing the Best
Living for What Really Matters
By Matthew N. O. Sadiku
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Dr. Matthew N. O. Sadiku
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-5299-7
Chapter One
THE GREATEST TRAGEDY
In my opinion, nothing is worthwhile, everything is futile. For what does a man get for all his hard work? (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 3, TLB).
Nearly everyone we encounter every day is longing to find answers to life's major questions including:
Who am I? Where did I come from? What is life all about? What is my purpose in life?
Our answers to these questions will affect most of the choices we make from day to day. So we must ask ourselves these questions again and again (perhaps a million times) until we find satisfactory answers. The inability to provide adequate answers to these questions results in a life that never achieves fulfillment. The search for meaning is a primary force that drives us in one direction or another in life.
The greatest tragedy is to go through life without meaning, purpose, and direction. Life without meaning is boring and profitless. It is at best absurd and lacking in worth. Purposelessness sickens our very soul. It makes us lose focus, feel miserable, experience confusion, and suffer identity crises. Bill Hybels rightly said:
There are things to be feared more than death: A wasted life. A life unattached to God's great endeavors. A self-willed, self-absorbed existence, narrow and routine and ultimately unsatisfying.
Over the years, wise men and woman in different nations have pondered the mysteries of human life. In the book of Ecclesiastes, for example, we are given the summary of the investigation into life issues by Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived. Solomon investigates the monotony of life, the vanity of wisdom, the futility of wealth, and the certainty of death. But his investigation was limited to "under the sun." Like Solomon, our perspective on life will determine whether our life is vanity or victory, which in turn leads to how we view our destination—death or transformation. To put it another way, our most important choice is between loving and hating God, life and death, blessing and cursing (Deuteronomy 30:15, 18; TLB). The Bible (Deuteronomy 39:20) puts in plain terms that:
CHOOSING THE LORD = CHOOSING LIFE
Life is a gift of God and is meant to be enjoyed. No one can fully enjoy life apart from God, the Giver and the Author of life. Pascal, a well-known French philosopher, said:
There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which only God can fill through His son, Jesus Christ.
So the starting point in pursuing a meaningful life is choosing Christ as our Savior and Lord. In this chapter, we will focus on:
• why you need to choose Christ and
• the benefits of that choice.
WHY CHOOSE CHRIST?
There are several major reasons why we need Christ in our lives. First of all, God is the Author of life and He gives us abundant life through His Son, Jesus Christ. There is no real living apart from Christ.
He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son has not life (1 John 5:12).
In his book Born Again, Chuck Colson confessed the emptiness he felt within himself in spite of his high-profile activities with President Richard Nixon. Popular cartoonist Ralph Barton committed suicide, leaving a note including this statement: "I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four hours of the day." These and thousands of others were highly skilled and responsible individuals, but they lacked meaning in their lives. They were searching for meaning, fulfillment, and comfort in the wrong places. Some people even look for help from chemical reinforcement, wrongly assuming that a pill, a bottle, or an injection can provide life's missing ingredient. The plight of a man or woman without God is aptly described in Job 8:14, which reads:
A man without God is trusting in a spider web. Everything he counts on will collapse (TLB).
Only God can give us lasting satisfaction and happiness. Only He can satisfy the soul which He made for Himself. Noble Saint Augustine understood this very well when he wrote:
You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in you.
Second, in a complex world full of snares, danger, and death, there is no safe treading but in the ways of God. The wise man said it best centuries ago:
A man is a fool to trust himself! But those who use God's wisdom are safe (Proverbs 28:26, TLB).
There is no safety in going through life without God. A person without God is a transgressor and the way of the transgressor is hard (Proverbs 13:15, KJV). His way is not only hard but dark. In fact, a person without God walks in darkness (Proverbs 13:15, KJV). Waking in darkness denotes ignorance, error, sin, hopelessness, and misery (Proverbs 4:19). A transgressor lives under a hard task-master, Satan. He dearly needs Jesus, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light (Matthew 11:30).
Third, there is no escape from your consideration of Christ. What you do with Him determines your destiny. To choose Christ as your Lord and Savior is to choose life. Not to choose Him is to choose death and eternal doom. Christianity is not just a religion; it involves one having a relationship with a person, Jesus Christ. In commenting on the uniqueness of Christ, C.S. Lewis wrote:
There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you have gone to Buddha and asked him, 'Are you the son of Bramah?' he would have said, 'My son, you are still in the vale of illusion.' If you have gone to Socrates and asked, 'Are you Zeus?' he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, 'Are you Allah?' he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, 'Are you Heaven?', I think he would have probably replied, 'Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.' The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man.
There is no question about Jesus being the only Savior, for He himself claimed this was so and God confirmed it. Millions of honest, responsible, and intelligent men and women over the years have found out by experience that Jesus is truly the only way to God. You too need to consider Him.
Lastly, salvation is found in only one way. Contemporary "religious" thinking and society promise many avenues for salvation in the here and now. Some of today's "wisdom" promises that salvation depends on goodness and works of righteousness. Society seems to imply that salvation depends on success. The average seeker is left confused, not knowing what to choose. The ways of death are many, but there is only one way of life.
All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit (Proverbs 16:2, RSV).
There is a way which seems right to man, but its end is the way of death (Proverbs 16:25, RSV).
Salvation is not through goodness, success or works of righteousness; it is through the Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me (John 14:6).
And the apostles said:
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
Rosey Grier and Kathi Mills have documented in their book Winning, the stories of athletes—people who, in the eyes of the world, have achieved great success. These athletes come from different racial, economic, and social backgrounds. Although each story in the book is different, each athlete arrived at the same conclusion—"that there is only one way to find success, only one truth to believe in, only one life worth living. That way, that truth, and that life is Jesus Christ."
We must choose whether Christ or Satan shall have our highest love, our supreme trust, our time, and our talent.
Not choosing by default means you are choosing to live for Satan, the ruler of this world. If you make Christ your choice, you will never regret that you did.
THE BENEFITS OF CHOOSING CHRIST
There are many benefits we derive when we choose Christ as our Lord and Savior. Among them,
We receive SALVATION of our souls.
We get the RIGHT PERCEPTION of life.
We are blessed with HAPPINESS and SATISFACTION.
We discover MEANING and PURPOSE for life.
We obtain POWER and WISDOM for living.
We are used by God to our FULL POTENTIAL.
We are a BLESSING to everyone around us.
It will suffice here to elaborate on three of these benefits.
1. Right Perception of Life
Psalm 36:9 says:
For with you [God] is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.
Reality is properly interpreted only when we view it in the light we receive from God. This is why the Bible regards an atheist a fool.
That man is a fool who himself, "There is no God!" Anyone who talks like that is warped and evil and cannot really be a good person at all (Psalm 14:1, TLB).
Our worldview is the thought system we develop for seeing and explaining the world around us. We view reality through a set of lenses which represent our belief. Our belief affects how we see and relate to what happens around us. Our view of reality is influenced by our worldview which is determined largely by the environment in which we grow up. Societal values tend to color the way we see things and the way we view life in general.
When Jesus said, "He who has eyes to see, let him see" or "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," He was saying that just because we have eyes and ears does not necessarily imply that we see or hear what is going on around us. But as our relationship with Christ develops, we can look and see deeper than just the surface of things. We begin to see things from the perspective of God. We see life from the point of view of eternity. Our life calling begins to dawn on us. Our values begin to shift in the right direction. The world around us looks different. Consequently, we begin to develop new priorities and our choices change. We now join the very few in our society and the world at large who see things as they really are.
2. Happiness and Satisfaction
Christ living in you is the secret to happy, radiant living. Philosophers have found that happiness is the ultimate pursuit of life. Most of us expect to achieve happiness and fulfillment in all our pursuits. We seek happiness in things—a comfortable home, good clothes, nice cars, and a substantial bank balance. Yet without Christ, we remain restless and miserable. Why?
Saint Thomas Aquinas argued that happiness is closely connected with man's end or purpose. In other words, to achieve happiness one must fulfill their purpose. We can find happiness only in God because we were made by God to find happiness only in Him. True happiness primarily comes from expending ourselves for a worthy purpose which Christ will reveal to us as we make Him our choice.
3. Purpose for Living
Choosing Christ is the beginning of purposeful living which is essentially living according to God's will. Living according to God's will will help us answer life's basic questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?
Christ gives a reason to live and a reason to die. He offers us an opportunity to follow Him and to reorient our lives around Him. He helps us discover our mission in life. When we live according to God's will, He directs and orders all our steps. Life becomes meaningful and obstacles on our way become challenges and stepping stones.
If you have not chosen Christ, you need to do so today. Friend, "agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you" (Job 22:21). Why not pray to God as follows:
Dear heavenly Father, I know I'm a sinner and deserve eternal punishment for my sin. But I believe You sent your Son, Jesus Chris, to die on the cross and pay the penalty of my sin. I sincerely want Him to be my Savior and Lord. I ask now that You forgive me my sin and save me in Jesus name. Amen and Amen.
If you have sincerely said that prayer, you have just made the greatest choice of your life. To choose Christ is to choose life.
Now that you have just chosen Christ, you need to do two things. First, you should begin your spiritual life the right way. To help you achieve this, I highly suggest that you read George Sweeting's book How to Begin the Christian Life. Second, you need to share the Gospel with others. Since life without Christ is the greatest tragedy, sharing the Gospel with people who are lost should be our greatest concern. God commanded that we share the Gospel with others (Matthew 28:19, 20). We must obey that command.
Chapter Two
THE GREATEST MISTAKE
He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5). I can do all things in him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).
Choosing to make Christ your Lord is wonderful, but it is not enough. It is one thing to receive Christ as Savior and Lord, it is another thing to yield to Him on a continual basis and let Him take charge of our life. While the greatest tragedy is to not choose Christ at all, the greatest mistake is failing to surrender completely to Him. There are at least two reasons why a lack of surrender to Christ is the greatest mistake.
First, it is the greatest mistake because it hinders us from discovering God's will for our life. Stubbornness does not allow God to use us as freely as He wants to. Instead of God being the controller of our life, we act like the one in charge. And with our limited wisdom, we are definitely going to make a mess of our life. Self-will produces no satisfying good; rather it always ends in disappointment.
Second, failing to yield to Christ is the greatest mistake because it is one we will live to regret in this life and the one hereafter. Pastors and counselors commonly see that those who give their lives to Christ in old age always regret they did not do so early in life. Such people look back over their life and see many things they could have done differently.
The problem of not yielding to God is clearly evident in the life of Saul, the first king of Israel. Saul was a man appointed by the Lord to rule over His people. He showed by example what a good king could achieve; he set possibilities and targets in front of the Israelites. But when all was said and done, Saul failed. His failure was not due to lack of ability or charisma but to his refusal to yield to the will of God. It was his disobedience that ultimately disqualified him from the office of king (1 Samuel 15:22-23). How different his story might read had he obeyed God. His life is a lesson to all of us: however talented and courageous we may be, we will fail unless we yield to the Lord. Many preachers and believers have become disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27) because they fail to submit themselves to God's will.
To avoid Saul's greatest mistake, we will focus on:
• what surrender to Christ involves and
• the benefits of that surrender.
WHAT SURRENDER TO CHRIST INVOLVES
To surrender to Christ essentially is to give Him what belongs to Him. It is practical acknowledgement of God's claim to possess those who are redeemed. We are His by right because He bought us with His blood. We are His—body, soul, and spirit—purchased by Him at the Cross. We are no longer our own (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 7:22-23). To surrender to Christ, then, is to be willing to say, "Lord Jesus, I am at your service. "Any duty. Anytime. Any distance. Anywhere."
It is one thing to profess that our all is on the altar, but it is another thing altogether to actually place all there without any reservation. Showing that we are genuinely surrendered to the lordship of Christ means that we must be:
• unshackled,
• untangled,
• controllable,
• obedient, and
• committed.
Let us take a look at each of these.
1. Be Unshackled
Apart from self-will, there are two things that will hold us back from surrendering our life completely to Christ—culture and sin. Therefore, we first must be unshackled from the dragon of culture.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Choosing the Best by Matthew N. O. Sadiku Copyright © 2012 by Dr. Matthew N. O. Sadiku. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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