The Eternal Either/Or

Choice ... the pearl of great price.  Yet it is not intended to be buried and hidden away.  A choice not made is worse than no choice at all ... it becomes a snare in which we trap ourselves and yet we can never be truly rid of  it.  It remains with us and becomes a curse if unused.

Each person must choose between God and the world ... God and mammon as the King James Version calls it.  This is the eternal, unchangeable condition of choice that can never be evaded.  Never in all eternity.  We are not given the luxury of saying, "God and the world."  This would be, in effect, to refrain from choosing and Scripture does not give us that luxury.  We do so to our own destruction [Hebrews 10:39].  No one can say, "One can choose a little mammon and also God as well."

It is also presumptuous to believe that only the person who desires great wealth is the one who chooses mammon.  The man who insists on having a single penny without God ... wanting that sole penny for himself ... thus chooses mammon.  A single penny is enough to make the choice.  To chose mammon, whether great or little, makes not the slightest difference.

Scriptures say that to love God is to hate the world and to love the world is to hate God.  This, of course, is the colossal point of contention, either love or hate.  And this is sadly the place where the most terrible of fights must be fought.  And where is this place?  In our inmost beings.  Whether we struggle over millions or over a single penny, it comes down to a matter of loving and preferring God.  This is a great and terrible fight for the highest place ... but what great and unmeasurable happiness is promised to the one who rightly chooses.

What is it that God really demands in this eternal either/or?  He demands obedience ... unconditional obedience.  He says that if we don't obey Him unconditionally, without qualification, we don't love Him.  And if we don't love Him ... then we hate Him.  If we are not obedient unconditionally then we are not bound to Him and if we are not bound to Him then we despise Him.

But if we can become absolutely obedient, then when we pray, "Lead us not into temptation" there will be no ambiguity in us ... we become undivided and single before God.  And that is the one thing that all of Satan's cunning and all of his snares cannot take by surprise ... an undivided will.  Where unclarity resides, there is temptation, and there it proves too easily the stronger.  Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is wavering, there will inevitably be disobedience at the bottom.

But where there is no ambiguity, Satan and his temptations are powerless.  But with even the slightest glimpse of wavering, Satan is strong and temptation is enticing, and keen-sighted is the evil one whose trap is called temptation and whose prey is called the human soul.  Ambiguity cannot hide itself from him and when he discovers it, temptation is always at hand.  But the person solely surrendered to God, without reservation, is absolutely safe. 

There is a tremendous danger in which we find ourselves by virtue of our humanity ... a danger that results from the fact that we are placed between two tremendous powers.  The choice is left to us.  We must either love or hate, and not to love is to hate.  So hostile are these two powers that the slightest inclination towards one side becomes absolute opposition to the other.  Let us not forget the tremendous choice we must make.  To be either duplicitous or to forget to choose is to have made our choice.

May God give each of us a truly undivided will ... one with a singular bent towards Him.