Choosing Good – Sunday, June 24, 1984
One of the most intriguing paradoxes of human nature is our capacity to encompass virtue and vice, strength and weakness, righteousness and sin in a single soul. Each of us is not merely strong or weak, but strong and weak, depending on the moment and the challenge.
This is how we are, but not how we were designed to be. God did not intend us to be paradoxes to ourselves. We come into this world innocent, free of sin. But the influence of a fallen world corrupts us. And our insensitivity to the promptings of our Creator makes all of us, at one time or another, weak to temptation.
Nevertheless, there are many people whom we judge to be virtuous; not because they are absolutely good, but because they have so magnified and encouraged the good in their lives that it overcomes temptation.
This choosing of good is what God intends: choosing the right way—not because we are unable to choose otherwise, but because we desire righteousness. So it is that the greatest challenge many of us will face is not in choosing between the good and evil of this world but in choosing between the strength and weakness in ourselves.
This paradox of choice has been our chief challenge since the first man and woman left the Garden of Eden and faced a world that did not naturally support them, a world that was not inclined to encourage their righteousness.
God requires that we choose for the good that is in us and against the evil that is in the world in order to find a place in His kingdom. He is understanding of our failure and has provided the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ that we may repent of our wrongdoing and choose once again the right way.
He, who unlike us is eternally righteous, who does not change or waver, understands and forgives our wavering and encourages us to change from our sin. He calls to us that we might forsake our vacillating between the good in ourselves and the evil in the world, that we might put aside the paradox of our lives and become one with him as He is one with all that is virtuous, lovely, of good report and praiseworthy.
And, if we will but choose Him and His way—though we may be weak, though at times we may fail—yet through repentance and the power of divine sacrifice shall we find the good that is in God…and in ourselves.
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June 24, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,862