Table of Contents

• Consider Your Core Christian Values
• Pray Before Making Decisions
• Biblical Guidance for Decisions
• Reflect on Core Christian Values
• Listen to Your Thoughts/Conscience
• Consider the Greater Good
• Seek God’s Will For Your Decisions
• Practice Gratitude
• Seek counsel
• Trust God’s Timing

Consider Your Core Christian Values

Consider how your decision aligns with core Christian values such as love, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, and integrity. Evaluate whether your decisions reflect these values and contribute to your spiritual growth and relationship with God.

Using our Christian faith as a guiding principle in decision-making can provide us with a strong moral compass and help us align our choices with our values and beliefs. Here are some key ways to incorporate your Christian faith into your decision-making process:

Pray Before Making Decisions

Begin by seeking guidance through prayer. Take time to pray and ask God for wisdom, clarity, and discernment in making your decision. Trust that God will provide you with the guidance you need to make the right choice.

Proverbs 3:5 & 6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. Don’t trust only your understanding of the situation. Acknowledge God in all your thinking, and He will direct your paths.” (my paraphrase).

This means simply that you can trust God to give you the wisdom for all your decisions.

Biblical Guidance for Decisions

Study the teachings of the Bible to gain insights into how to make decisions that align with your Christian faith. Look for scriptures that relate to the specific decision you are facing and consider how they can inform your choices. Here are three Bible verses that emphasize the importance of seeking guidance:

This verse reminds us to trust in the Lord wholeheartedly. It acknowledges that our understanding is limited and that God’s guidance is essential for leading us on the right path.

1. Psalm 32:8 (NIV)
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.”

God promises to instruct and guide us in the way we should go. By seeking His counsel, we can navigate life with the assurance of His loving guidance.

2. James 1:5 (NIV)
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

We can ask God’s wisdom about anything and everything. Nothing is too big or too small. If it’s important to you, it’s important to God. God provides his guidance generously and without judgment.

3. Psalm 25:4-5 (NIV)
“Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”

When we approach God as students, meaning we know he has more information than we do, we acknowledge that his wisdom is far greater than ours. Our hope is placed in a person, not in the answer. This gives us the patience to wait until we are sure of God’s leading.

These verses highlight the importance of seeking guidance from God in all aspects of our lives. By trusting in His wisdom and seeking His direction, we can make decisions that keep us within his will.

Reflect on Core Christian Values

Consider how your decision aligns with core Christian values such as love, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, and integrity. Evaluate whether your decisions reflect these values and contribute to your spiritual growth and relationship with God.

For example, if integrity is really important to you, you are not going to engage in gossip. You are going to tell the store clerk that they undercharged you. You are going to put away your cart in the parking lot! (If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, that part about the cart isn’t going to mean anything to you.)

Listen to Your Thoughts/Conscience

Pay attention to your thoughts and conscience, which are often guided by the Holy Spirit. It’s one way God communicates with us. If you feel a sense of peace or unease about a decision, take it as a sign from God. Don’t automatically distrust your intuition as you navigate the decision-making process.

A book I highly recommend for understanding how God uses our thoughts to direct us is Hearing God by Dallas Willard. If we are walking daily with God and engaging in spiritual disciplines, especially daily prayer and Bible study, we can trust that God speaks to us through our thoughts/conscience. But remember, this is only if we continuously keep him at the center of our lives.

When we become Christians, we don’t park our brains or lose our sense of reason. God expects us to gather information, use our thinking abilities, and use our reason when making decisions. I have found that this process of gathering information is often a way God directs me in decision-making.

Consider the Greater Good

Evaluate how your decision will impact not only yourself but also others around you. Consider how your choice can contribute to the well-being of those involved and how it aligns with the greater good according to Christian teachings.

This is important. The Bible addresses this few places in Scripture when the apostle Paul talks about our freedom in Christ. He states that our freedom in Christ doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want. In fact, it means just the opposite. Freedom in Christ means we are free to deny ourselves if it will hurt our Christian brother or sister.

For example, if you feel that going to an R-rated movie that others would know about muddies how they would feel about you, don’t go. This is a definite gray area, and there are a lot of them. Giving some thoughts as to how others will perceive you if you make a certain decision, shows your compassion.

As I said, this is tricky because, obviously, you can’t live your life wondering what others might think of you if you do such and such. That’s why it’s important to give some thought to the far-reaching effect of your decision. No matter what you decide then, you will know you didn’t decide haphazardly.

Seek God’s Will For Your Decisions

Ultimately, strive to align your decisions with God’s will for your life. Surrender your plans and desires to God and trust that His plan for you is greater than anything you could imagine. Seek to glorify God through your choices and actions.

I have a friend I co-taught Bible study classes with. She said she had a criterion she followed when making decisions about what someone in the church might ask her to do. Because she was the pastor’s wife, you can imagine the number of activities people thought she should be a part of. She said that she passed all decisions through this filter: Would it take away time from her family? Would it take away time from her husband? Would it take away from the activities she was already committed to?

She knew what her priorities were. Everything had to fit under this umbrella of God’s already will for her at this stage in her life.

Practice Gratitude

Maintain an attitude of gratitude throughout the decision-making process. Thank God for His guidance, presence, and provision in your life, knowing that He is with you every step of the way. Thank him for the decisions he’s helped you make in the past. You wouldn’t think gratitude would be a part of decision-making, would you?

When I began writing this post, I didn’t think about gratitude, but the more I thought about my own past decision-making, the more I realized how gratitude plays a part even here. I mean, think about it. Shouldn’t we be grateful for the wisdom God gives us all the time? I love the book of Proverbs because it’s full of sound advice. Recount your past decisions and how God provided wisdom for you when you needed to make a decision. And maybe even think about the bad decisions you might have made because you didn’t seek God’s wisdom.

Seek counsel

Seek counsel from fellow believers, mentors, or spiritual leaders within your Christian community. Discuss your decision with them and ask for their perspective and advice. Their wisdom and insights can help you see the situation from different angles and provide clarity.

By integrating these practices into your decision-making process, you can cultivate a deeper connection with your Christian faith and make choices that honor God and reflect your values as a believer. Remember that decision-making is a journey, and it’s okay to seek support and guidance along the way. Trust in God’s wisdom and guidance as you navigate life’s choices with faith and conviction.

Trust God’s Timing

This is the hard part, right? But we can trust that if our decision is time-sensitive,, we will have the decision when we need it. God never shows up late.

Recently, I was praying about a situation. It looked like everything was headed to a certain decision. I was sitting in my car waiting for a store to open when I got a phone call. It changed everything, and the decision was made. Good will never let us make the wrong decision, even if it is at the last minute.

But the most important truth about decision-making is that the process is not always something we are even aware of. The truth is we are always making decisions. When we choose to do one thing, it means there is another thing we are not doing. But, if you’ll recall from yesterday, it’s OK for some decisions to be put on autopilot.

I hope something in these past two days has helped. Making good decisions framed within our relationship with God helps us grow spiritually. We want to make good decisions because they serve as a basis for future decisions. They built on each other.

God bless.