You have to make the decision. “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.” (Psalm 37:23) But you must be willing.
The Lord may at times make our circumstances to be unavoidable, at times, there may be no other choice, but for the majority of your life, all of the decisions you make you will be accountable for. Many on that day will attempt to blame someone else, but to no avail, “My pastor said so,” “My friends made me,” even “The devil tempted me,” not one will be seen as viable. You are always accountable for you.
Men have renounced their faith instead of watching their children tortured, women have forgone worshipping God when loved ones are threatened, but these are extreme analogies, that small “white” lie, or the temptation that we put ourselves in the path of on purpose, these are the normal decisions that we must make every day. “Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.” (Luke 12:3)
There is something that every believer should be told before they come to the cross, “God will be watching you all the time.” The one who will continue, the one who falls on their face at the cross with this knowledge always in the recesses of their minds are the ones who will either become profitable or fear the Lord for all the wrong reasons. I believe that many who sit in the pews these days do not do what they want to do because of the fear of a possible punishment from the Lord God, they do not want to be punished, and so their love is actually formed around the continuation of self, and as much as is possible, a happy, healthy, convenient life. They serve out of fear, and not for the glory of God, not in the reverential fear that the Scriptures speak of.
Moses was God’s main representative of the Lord to the people in the wilderness, he gave the words of God to the people. When he was gone up into the mount to speak with the Lord, and the people thought it had been too long, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.” (Exo. 32:1) The people had Aaron make a golden calf and praised it as the living God. Then they rose up to play, not all, but many. They made a decision and paid with their lives for that decision.
This age of grace that we are living in has lasted almost two thousand years now, God is not speaking audibly to the masses of humanity from the mountain, Jesus is not walking visibly amongst us, there are few that are warning, compared to the amount of people on the planet. The people have become emboldened, they have decided that God is not going to return, and they have risen up to play. “We are the masters of our destiny” is the cry of many, and they will be held accountable for those words. “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.” (Matt. 25:14)
Whether you want to admit it or not, all those who have been crucified with Christ are the responsible party, the duty is ours to proclaim the message, to stand and speak against the evil of these days, to consider every action one for the glory of God, this is our job. “If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” (1 Cor. 3:15) I want you to ponder these words, they imply that you have something in your possession right now, something that glorifies the Lord God, something that makes it possible for you to stand when you don’t think you can. It is not the Holy Spirit if you are saved, it is not Jesus, for He has promised “for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” (Deut. 31:6) And it is not God, for you have been sealed. (Eph. 1:13) It is a gift, and it has been freely given to you, along with explicit instructions on how to use it for the glory of God. And there is a possibility that you will lose it, and no one will be accountable for that loss but you. There will be no one to blame but you.
