In 1927 many businesses had difficulties that forced them to close. One was an insurance company in Savannah, Georgia. There were more than 500 stockholders who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The owner, a man named Mercer and his son, promised to repay each one of them.
Twenty eight years later the final debt was paid. Even though the father had died, the son paid each debt in full.
The son had become a famous songwriter and it was one of the songs he wrote that enabled him to pay the debts. The songwriter was Johnny Mercer and the song was “Accentuate the Positive.”
Choosing to do the right thing is often difficult, sometimes painful. There are times when it may mean the loss of money or some valued object. It may even cost a friendship with someone who is destroying our walk with the Lord. It may mean giving up a job that would cause us to compromise our honor. Honoring God always forces us to choose to do what He has asked us to do: obey His teachings. Knowing what is right is rarely the problem. Doing what is right, however, is. However, greater is He who is within us than he who is in the world.
The old enemy loves nothing better than to trick us into rationalizing why it’s OK to do something when we know in our hearts that it isn’t. We’ve all fallen for his lies and tricks and we often pay for that mistake. One thing that always helps is to run everything we are going to do by God first. If your actions don’t get God’s stamp of approval, I’d say don’t do it.
Now believe me here, I’m not talking about silly things like putting your shoes on in the morning. God’s even interested in that but we don’t have to run those types of things by Him for His approval. Well, maybe if you have a habit of putting them on the wrong feet, the two of you might want to have a little talk about that. You know the types of things I’m talking about. Sure, the enemy is even tricky enough to take a pair of shoes and turn them against us but you follow my drift here.
Every time the enemy tricks us into thinking that it really doesn’t matter if we do the right thing or the wrong thing, he puts a dent in our spiritual armor. What happens to metal when it gets dented enough? It gets weak. On the other hand, when we do what we know is right in spite of the enemy’s tricks, we kind of give him a black eye. We also develop a type of spiritual resistance to the enemies attacks. I’d like to think that over time he just gives up trying but if the enemy is anything, he’s persistent.
The really neat thing in all this is that we are not in this battle alone. Our Lord is always with us to give us the strength and guidance to overcome the enemy’s tricks. This principle holds true in everything we do in life. Every battle we face we need not face it alone. The choice is ours.
z35W7z4v9z8w
