A silent rowboat drifting to no particular place. The other boats clustering at port look normal. Why is this one floating alone?  The motor is in place. The oars, you can see them. They are a little splintered but they are serviceable. How confusing. Why is this boat drifting? The absence of anchor and rope makes everything clear. Isn’t this like some churchgoers today? Sometimes you see them, they are full of God’s Words. Other times, if you didn’t know better, you might think, “I need to help them find Jesus.” It is an odd thought for a believer in Jesus to need help finding Him. Isn’t He with you everywhere you go? Quality decisions are like anchors for a rowboat. They steady you.  They help you stay in port. They keep you from making a living mess out of your life. Let’s look at decisions in today’s post.

Hebrews 2:1 (GW)
1 For this reason we must pay closer attention to what we have heard. Then we won’t drift away from the truth.

ILLUSTRATION: Consider Each Day a Gift
A man in Iowa discovered that he had terminal cancer. For weeks he moped around the house avoiding loved ones, inwardly cursing God and wondering why this tragedy had happened to him. Then one day he made a decision: “I am not dead yet, and I am going to live each day to its fullest the rest of my life.” Sometime later, when he was interviewed, he said he had experienced a more abundant life in the weeks after that decision than during his prior 42 years–colors seemed more vivid, the laughter of his children more bright and precious. One suggestion he gave to help others with terminal illness was, “Consider each day as a gift from God; enjoy it fully.”

• Here is another suggestion for those with terminal illness.
• Receive your healing. Jesus provided it for you.
• Did you notice? Only when this man made the decision to live life to the fullest each day did he actually begin to enjoy it.
• Before the decision, he was as a homeless drifter eking out 42 years of life.
• Is that you today? Just eking out life?

Quality Decisions Keep Drift Out of Your Life

• There is enough complexity in life.
• Enough to keep you moving away from focusing on what matters.

ILLUSTRATION: Early Days of Apple
In the early days of the Apple Computer company, co-founder Steven Jobs offered the position of CEO to Pepsi chairman John Skully. Skully wasn’t really interested in the position. He was satisfied with his work at PepsiCo. Finally, in exasperation, Jobs looked Skully in the eye and said, “Are you telling me that you would rather sell sugared water for the rest of your life, when you could lead a company that will change the world?” Skully made the decision to leave Pepsi and went to work for Apple.

• He made the decision to leave when he really understood what counts.

1 Cor. 2:1 through 1 Cor. 2:2 (NLT)
1 Dear brothers and sisters, when I first came to you I didn’t use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God’s message. 2 For I decided to concentrate only on Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.

• Paul made a decision in 1Corinthians 2:2. He said, “For I determined. I made a resolution. This was my fixed, deliberate purpose when I came to you. It was not a matter of accident, or chance, that I made Christ my great and constant theme, but it was my deliberate purpose.
• Paul made this resolution, knowing the special fondness of the Greeks for lofty words, brilliant ideas and wonderful orations.
• Paul made the decision because he was inclined to focus on the same areas as the Greeks.
• He was inclined to suck the mental candy of philosophy.
• He was inclined to loftiness. Paul was educated with the best of them.
• Paul determined he would not allow drift in his life.
• Every man is a genius in his own arena.
• Paul said, “I am deciding to stay in the arena of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
• You have to fight to stay straight.
• Resolve to stay on God’s wavelength.

Why You Should Make Quality Decisions

• If you don’t, the only good that you will do will come by accident. That’s the life of a drifter.
• Decision making is purposeful living.
• Decision making is thoughtful living.
• It is what keeps your carnal nature from dominating your life.
• Your carnal nature, the same flesh that led you into excess and sin when you were in the world, resists spiritual progress. It raises its sign in protest every time.

Gal. 5:16-17 (NKJV)
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

• Then comes the excuses. You know what excuses are? They are how you keep your guard up when your conscience is beating your face in. Everyone wants a way out.

ILLUSTRATION: Breaking the Tie
It is this way. The Lord, he is always voting for a man; and the devil, he is always voting against him. Then the man himself votes and that breaks the tie.

• You can’t wait until you feel like praying before you pray. You have to vote and break the tie.
• You resolve to do it before you have to do it.
• If you wait until ‘you feel like doing’ before you do, you will never get it done.
• There is a blessing in pressing.

Discipline is the Managing Part of a Quality Decision

What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are. And what we are are the results of previous years of self-discipline. – H.P. Liddon

• Your nature does not care for this word.
• Comfortable is much nicer.
• Your nature would rather lie down when it’s time to pray.
• It wants to withhold when it’s time to give.
• Why not throw in some entertainment while you are at it?
• “After all”, you might say” I can’t understand the Bible anyway. So why read it?”
• Did you ever wonder whose voice is speaking? You know the one constantly calling out to you?
• The voice has a name. It’s called feeling.
• Discipline will silence the shrill chords of feeling.

What is Discipline?

• According to Webster, discipline is training that develops self-control, character, or orderliness and efficiency.
• Discipline is doing what you really don’t want to do, so you can do what you really need to do.
• Did you notice the similarity between disciple and discipline?
• One is in the other.
• The word means to teach or to train, bring up, or to discipline.
• A disciple is a disciplined trained one!

Matthew 28:19 (KJV)
19 Go ye therefore and teach (make disciples of) all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

• The word ‘teach’ here is incorrectly translated. It should have been translated ‘make disciples of’.
• Becoming a disciple is greater than just hearing Bible teaching. Discipleship involves commitment to what is being taught.
• Discipline is a companion to the decision we make committing to spiritual things.
• Another word that goes along with decision and discipline is determination.
• Notice the three D’s we have going on here.
• Professor Webster again adds this clarity. Determination is a fixed purpose, resolution, or intention.
• Can you see why a quality decision has to include determination?

Luke 9:51 (KJV)
51And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,

Most men fail, not through lack of education, but from lack of dogged determination and dauntless will. – Charles Swindoll

Call to Action:

ILLUSTRATION: Eagle Like People
Some time ago the United Technologies Corporation published in the Wall Street Journal a full-page message entitled, “It’s What You Do, Not When You Do It.” The message contained a listing of many eagle like people who soared at various ages in their lives. Ted Williams, at age 42, slammed a home run in his last official time at bat. Mickey Mantle, age 20, hit 23 home runs his first full year in the major leagues. Golda Meir was 71 when she became Prime Minister of Israel. William Pitt II was 24 when he became Prime Minister of Great Britain. George Bernard Shaw was 94 when one of his plays was first produced. Mozart was just seven when his first composition was published. Now, how about this? Benjamin Franklin was a newspaper columnist at 16 and a framer of the United States Constitution when he was 81.

• You are never too young or too old to become an eagle. It takes a quality decision to start. Age has little to do with soaring. Discipline plays a part as does determination. The three D’s can help you become what you are supposed to be.

QUESTION: What have you learned about decisions which could help us all grow? Please leave your comments in the comments section below.