The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make

If you work on Capitol Hill for a senator or a representative, or for a congressional committee or one of the congressional agencies, you are likely to face having to make significant decisions in your work, decisions that can sometimes alter the course of your career, your life, perhaps even our country.

Working on Capitol Hill is not “just a paycheck,” it’s important and worthy of your best and fullest attention, skills and devotion. For me, the three years I worked on the Hill and then the five for President Reagan before becoming a journalist (and covering Congress for three decades) were in some important respects the most significant of my career.

But no decision you will ever have to make on your job — whether to hire a certain job applicant, how to tell your boss he or she is wrong on something, your recommendation on how to approach resolving a difficult issue — will ever be as important as the one you make about Jesus Christ.

At one level, the Jesus Question is like any other decision; it has two parts, the problem and the solution. But where the Jesus Question is unlike any other decision you will ever make is the reality that your answer will determine your eternal destiny.

Here’s the problem part of the Jesus Question: Romans 3:23 makes it pretty clear and simple – “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” What is sin? It is all the familiar evils that immediately come to mind, like murder, rape and theft. But it also the countless other ways every one of us fall short of God’s standards.

Have you ever cursed in the privacy of your mind the guy who got the promotion for which you think you were obviously vastly more deserving? How about lusted after a colleague in your office or another one even though you are married? Or maybe told a colleague how stupid something was that another colleague said during a staff meeting?

The problem is He says in many places in the Old and New Testaments that we are to be holy as He is. But because of sin that besets every human being who has ever or ever will live, we find it impossible to “be holy.” As Paul put it at Romans 7:15-24, we don’t do what we know we should do and we do the things we know we shouldn’t.

And that brings us to the solution: Jesus said at John 14:6 “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father but through me.” He also said at John 3:16-18 that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that who ever believes in Him won’t perish but will have ever-lasting life …”

So there you are. What will you do with Jesus? It’s the most important decision you will ever make. And it may not be an easy one because Satan has fed us all so many lies, so many “real” ways to happiness, including addiction, wealth, power, fame and so much more. Trust me, I tried all of them I could.

If you have questions about any or all of this and want to talk with someone who has been where you are, it would be my privilege to sit down with you for a totally candid, off-the-record conversation.

There won’t be any judging, no pressure, no preaching. Just real talk. Shoot me an email at mark.tapscott@hillfaith.org and we’ll set something up. It’s the most important decision of your life.