Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. (Hebrews 11:25 NKJV)
Choosing is different from desiring. Most people have the wrong notion that they are the same. If you will make them choose between being educated or uneducated, they will say “educated”; choose between doing very good or doing poor, they say “to do very good”; between happy and sad, that is easy, of course “to be happy”; to follow Christ or the devil? They will pick Christ. Many try to pursue what they say they choose. Unfortunately, they stop when things get rough. They stop in favor of an easy, pleasurable, and wicked life that is only temporary. They really do not choose, they only desire. When you choose some- thing, you are willing to pay the cost of getting it, whatever it takes. You choose knowing in the end, it will benefit you and give you lasting happiness and fulfillment.
Today, there are lots of choices. Tomorrow will open up new choices. Each day is an act of choosing and rejecting. We decide based on whether it is rational or not, but we also decide based on what our heart dictates. For us who believes in Christ, we follow our faith. Faith is the abiding light that makes us choose even if our minds reject. For example, we choose to suffer for the sake of Christ. Why? We know in our hearts that He suffered for us because of His great love for us. We love Him because He first loved us. We rejoice in serving Him and pleasing Him. We have hope that He will give us a reward in heaven, greater than what we sacrificed for in this life. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be com- pared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
