“A or B”: Four more  Binary Choices

A lot of people live life as though their faith is a very nice perk.

But a perk nonetheless.

They seem to view it as “free” in the sense of not costing them anything. But the Lord Jesus rejected that common conception with crystal clarity, confirming that Christianity comes with a cost: not in terms of what we do (it definitely can’t be bought or earned in any way or extent) but rather it terms of what we don’t.

Here are four things which a Christian must (must!) reject, between which we must choose, these four things or God, i.e., we can’t serve, love, or primarily focus on both… yep, it’s a binary choice as discussed in the previous post, A or  B.

Each and every believer must choose between:

God or money/mammon/wealth (i.e., that isn’t used for His  purposes and will and work, not wealth that is – as has been beautifully and properly proven through the years, from Abraham to Joseph of Arimathea to Joe Gibbs of NFL and racing fame, Norm Miller of Interstate Battery [and now his son Scott seems to solidly be carrying on that tradition] and Steve Green [of Hobby Lobby and Museum of the Bible fame]).

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24, emphasis added)

God or sinful pleasure

“lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4b)
“in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:12)

God or the world (i.e., the worldly system or possessions…)

“Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15)

…and James puts it just as clearly and using even stronger language in his Epistle:

“You adulteresses [i.e., people who pray with wrong/worldly/selfish motives], do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4)

God or our friends or family or even our own life in terms of  the “pole position”, of who or what takes precedence in our life, which is why the Lord Jesus made the two following statements, really wise words of warning: Christ comes FIRST, and Count the cost FIRST (before becoming a Christian, before consummating that commitment… see, I told ya  there’s a cost! But infinitely more importantly, the Lord told us!)

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life [i.e., compared to how much  one loves the Lord, i.e., one’s love for even family and even one’s own life should be so much less by comparison that one’s love for those other things seems like  hatred], he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower [or house], does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else [i.e., if the answer is no], while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks terms of peace. So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. [i.e., for the sake and purposes of the Kingdom and will and work of God]” (Luke 14:26-33)

I don’t know how often or deeply the powers-that-be at Mercedes-Benz browse the Bible, but one of their most famous taglines could’ve come straight from this passage, that we must give the Lord our ALL, or nothing at all  (in effect); that we must give the Lord our BEST or nothing.