In order to pursue a worthy purpose repeatedly and diligently, the wheels of will, mind, and body must meet the road of life, engaging traction upon it.  Mere mental recognition of these potential drivers of life only takes one to the point of decision but not over the threshold of engagement.  Understanding how we move past this point will equip us to make the next step into engagement with life.  Reality makes it obvious that we are faced with choices unless philosophers are correct in that it is an illusion covering over actual determinism (all things determined by other factors with no opportunity for actual personal choices).  While we confirm that God rules sovereignly over all things past, present, and future, we see in the Bible clear choices for mankind, even if we don’t fully understand how God’s sovereignty concurs with our freedoms to choose.  In the end, our beliefs and values must be empowered by God’s working out His will in us and through us in order to influence the world around us.  These empowered choices to carry out the works we were created to do (Ephesians 2:10) are repeated a million times over a lifetime to reach the goal of shalom, or whole person well-being.  (See prior essay “Biblical Values to Uphold In Whole Person Health Part 1: Old Testament Word Study”)

               Lives of fruitfulness require that we choose repeatedly to move towards correctly chosen purposes.  Our will must push, the mind must respond, the body must engage reality as a tire presses into asphalt and begins to move the vehicle.  The body physically carries out what the will desired and the mind conceived.  While these are here separated, in reality for the will to desire, the mind had to present a conception of what might be desired in the future after a choice is made and acted upon by the body.  Furthermore, the body had perceived the physical reality through its senses allowing the mind and will to better understand what it might desire.  Without becoming lost in these philosophical explorations, one must humbly accept the reality in which they live and move.

               Unless one is distracted by irrational philosophical mind games, one will have to admit that choices are ever-present. Philosophers and teachers of bad religion can attempt to deny that we have choices within our reach by appealing to deterministic life approaches. Philosophers have promulgated the idea of “fates” in the past and today we look to the forces of “science” producing set causes paired with inalterable effects.  Religions have also toyed with the “fates” as controlling beings rather than brute forces.  Even in Christianity, an overextended or overemphasized sovereignty of God can leave one feeling trapped in a destiny that one cannot change.  Holding the Bible as true, we are faced with the reality of choices we see described in its pages.  For example, God called the Hebrews to choose to serve (Joshua 24:15 and others) and God calls us now, after Christ’s first coming, to respond to Christ (Acts 2:38 and others).  God then calls us who are regenerated to respond in obedience to live out a response worthy of the call (Ephesians 4:1).  We were created for good works, yet we must choose good works. (Ephesians 2:10).

               Once choices are accepted as the only reality confirmed by the Bible and also by our perception of reality, their performance must be grounded in right beliefs, driven by right values, and empowered by God’s working.  From the beginning, according to God’s sovereignty, all things must originate with God.  Therefore, a good fruit from a good choice must begin with God’s working in us.  If we start with a right belief in our fallen condition resulting from Adam’s fall, we can more easily see that something beyond ourselves is needed to overcome our brokenness.  This truth presses upon us whether or not we recognize and believe it, but our belief in it as a fundamental reality makes our cooperation with it more fruitful.  Having already connected back to right beliefs about reality, we must see the created world as it really is. Physically, we perceive it as having true substance with which we interact.  Relationally, we perceive that we are not alone in this reality as others influence what we experience in it.  Spiritually, through inborn instincts and through God’s revelation of His word, we know that there is more to reality than solely the physical and we owe allegiance not ultimately to the physical reality but to the creator of the reality.  On this foundation we can construct an accurate set of beliefs about reality.

               Once we have our perception correct in that set of beliefs, we can develop values on what matters and on what is important to our Creator. We may move towards natural inclinations to determine our values, but our fallenness and lack of an external standard will create a great variety of individual values which are inconsistent with God’s values.  Or instead, we can value God’s ways as better than ours and seek His values to be ours, making our desires from His desires.  Values consistent with God’s values based on right beliefs sets us up for right choices leading to right behaviors.  We learn His values through our minds and our practices as guided by His Spirit.  Our mind applies His Word to understanding by diligent study.  Repeated applications of that understanding deepens our understanding of God’s ways.  Given our sinful nature (Romans 7), we must have His Spirit to move us beyond our fallen tendencies to error.  Our values must reflect His values through His Spirit working in us.

               By believing what is right according to God’s design and desiring what is right according to God’s Word, we can move according to His Spirit working in us to move our bodies to carry out right actions.  We can choose right and good and best only if beliefs and values are correct.  Again emphasized, belief that is contrary to reality makes one’s actions irrational and unlikely to achieve correctly desired outcomes. Also again, valuing the wrong things moves us towards wrong actions.  In contrast, God’s Spirit working with us finishes the work and we can then choose rightly.  Belief, values, and God’s Spirit underlie how we choose and how we choose repeatedly despite pressure to do otherwise.

Next in this Pracsy Series… “Body in Practice, The Beginning”