Sometimes we assume that if we aren’t actively serving the devil, we are serving God by default.

The most accepted definition of default is “a selection automatically used by a computer program in the absence of a choice made by the user.” We suppose that, since we’d certainly never choose to worship Satan, we are Christians by default—and that making a conscious, deliberate choice to follow the Lord (and then doing it) isn’t necessary. And this is why we have multitudes of professing Christians who drift from one day to the next, year after year, with no passion or power. If you were ask one of these “Christians by default” why they burn with love for Jesus, they would stare at you like a cow at a new fence because the idea of love and passion in connection with the Lord is foreign to them.

As far as they are concerned, “Christian” is simply the category they fall into because they live a civilized life.

But God says we must choose: “Choose for yourselves today the one you will worship” (Josh. 24:15 HCSB). We do not gain Jesus by default. Christianity isn’t something we stumble into when we’re too lazy or busy to be deliberate about the most important aspect of our lives. To be a Christian is to daily choose, love, serve, and submit to a Person. To leave one’s spiritual identity to chance by failing to choose is to gamble with eternity.