252 – Acts 17: How To
Make Better Decisions
Everyone
has to make decisions
…choose today whom you will serve. JOSHUA 24:15 NLT
You must each decide in your heart
how much to give. 2 CORINTHIANS 9:7 NLT
Some
of us are:
Careless with decision-making
Wise people think before they act; fools don’t—and even brag about
their foolishness. PROVERBS 13:16 NLT
Paralyzed
by decision-making
(Jesus said) “Why can’t you decide for yourselves what is
right? LUKE 12:57 NLT
Prideful about our decision-making
Then they took him to the high
council of the city. “Come and tell us about this new teaching,” they said. “You are saying some rather strange things,
and we want to know what it’s all about.”
(It should be explained that all the Athenians
as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing
the latest ideas.) So Paul, standing before the
council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very
religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many
shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’
This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.
“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of
heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he
has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies
every need. From one man he created all the nations
throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and
fall, and he determined their boundaries. His
purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward
him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some
of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of
God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone. “God
overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he
commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world
with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is
by raising him from the dead.” When they heard Paul speak about the
resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, “We want
to hear more about this later.” That ended Paul’s discussion with them, but some joined him and became believers. ACTS 17:19-34 NLT
To
make better decisions I must:
Keep an open mind
That very night the believers sent
Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived there, they went to the Jewish
synagogue. And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in
Thessalonica. Acts 17:10-11 NLT
Fools think their own way is right! PROVERBS 12:5 NLT
Often,
people who believe they have the most open minds are in fact the most closed
Listen to Godly counsel
…and they listened eagerly to Paul’s
message. ACTS 17:11 NLT
Plans succeed through good counsel; PROVERBS 20:18 NLT
The godly offer good counsel; they teach right from wrong. PSALM 37:30 NLT
Search the scriptures for truth
They searched the Scriptures day
after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. As a result, many
Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men. ACTS 17:10-12 NLT
Have you listened in the council of God? And do you limit
wisdom to yourself? JOB 15:8 ESV