CHOOSE

Life is filled with choices.  Some are very easy to make; some are difficult.  For born again believers, our commitment to Christ limits our options, or at least it should!  Before we received the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, our life was totally focused on what made us happy.  Our way of life could be described as "if it feels good, do it!"  That is unacceptable for a believer! 

The Apostle Paul described our lives before we came to Christ: 
*     "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?  Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:9-11).  
*     "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:19-21).
*     "For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another" (Titus 3:3).

Paul also described the characteristics of the lives of those who have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and are led by the indwelling Holy Spirit:
*     "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:  against such there is no law" (Gal. 5:22-23).
*     "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:  for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth; proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.  And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.  For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret" (Eph. 5:8-12).
*     "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God" (Phil. 1:9-11).

"...Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2:19)!