What would your future self tell you about the choices you’re making today?

Our lives reflect every choice we’ve made. A year from now, what will our choices reveal? How about in ten years? Are we allowing sin to steal our relationships? Damage our reputation? Compromise our testimony?

If our noses grew like Pinocchio’s every time we lied, would we be more motivated to change our behavior? If we sprouted nasty warts every time we cheated on a test, stole from a colleague or betrayed a friend, wouldn’t we do whatever it took to prevent more warts from emerging?

But it doesn’t work this way.

Our physical features don’t usually change because of sin, but our soul certainly does. Sin causes our soul (our core, the essence of who we are) to become calloused to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

To prevent this from happening, we must take deliberate action. Stockpiling God’s Word in our minds and hearts helps us remain tender to God’s mind and heart. Then our desires will be the same as His, and so will our actions.

Psalm 119:11 (ESV) says,

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

Other translations use words like “treasured” or “hidden” for the word “stored.” (Don’t you love the mental picture “treasured” brings to mind?)

The more we read, meditate on and memorize the Bible, the less we’ll be deceived by temptation. Some of you can testify to this, which is why you remain faithful to treasure God’s Word in your heart.

Perhaps you’ve done this in the past, but it’s been a while. Why not take steps to hide God’s Word in your heart again?

If we allow dust to grow on our Bibles, how healthy will our relationships be? How might our reputations look? What kind of testimony would we have? Not good, right? But if we dust off our Bibles and immersed ourselves in them, it will transform our lives.

The year is more than half over. At the start of the year, many of us resolved to live differently. Thankfully, if we put godly habits in place, we can still end this year strong.

But if we don’t spend time in God’s Word, we deprive the Holy Spirit of a powerful weapon to help us fight sin and temptation. And the consequences will be far worse than a Pinocchio nose or nasty warts.

If you don’t believe me, ask your future self.

What do you think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this post. (Others might also benefit from your comment.)

• What would your future self tell you about the choices you’re making today?
• How different would your future self’s predictions be if you were to begin today meditating and obeying God’s Word?

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