There is a verse in Mathew that best expresses Jesus’s mission here on earth. In Chapter 1, Verse 21, the angel appears before Joseph and explains to him that Mary has conceived and become pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

Joseph is then told by the angel that “She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” The angel is revealing Jesus’s mission before he is even born.

He came to save us from our sins. He is going to save us from God’s wrath by bearing our sins on the cross.

I love how Paul addresses this in Romans 4:8 when he says, “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

I ask men all the time, what is that worth to you? When you stand before God’s judgement seat and you are told you will not have to give an account of your sins because Jesus accounted for them and bore them on His body at the cross. Again, what is that worth to you? I believe it is worth everything.

However, it is also important to realize that Jesus came to save us from ourselves. Human beings have an incredible propensity to self-destruct. We like to go our own way. That is why the Bible says we are like sheep that need a shepherd, who will be the guardian of our souls. (I Peter 2:25)

I recently spoke to a very experienced counselor and asked him what percentage of his clients have sabotaged their lives by making bad choices and decisions. His answer really surprised me: “Over 90 percent.”

As I look back upon my life and as I think about all the men I have interacted with and counseled over the years, I have concluded that our lives are nothing more than the sum of the choices we have made over time. Most of our problems and struggles are the result of bad decisions. It is a reaping. This is the way God designed life.

I thought about this when I read some insightful words from the great Christian scholar Alec Motyer. He said:

“In a world created by a good God, evil and injustice are ‘inherently self-destructive.’ The resulting social disintegration expresses [God’s] wrath. He presides over the cause and effect processes he has built into creation so they are expressions of his holy rule of the world.”

In other words, God has designed the world so that pride, deceit, greed, cruelty, and exploitation have natural consequences that are a manifestation of His anger towards evil.

The prophet Isaiah said “Say to the righteous that it will go well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their actions.” (Isaiah 3:10)

Then the prophet Jeremiah says, “I the Lord search the heart, I examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:10)

Rarely do we fully realize the significance of the decisions and choices we make. They always bring consequences into our lives. It is your choices and decisions that determine the ultimate outcome of your life.

It is important for us to realize that Jesus’s desire is to teach us how to live wisely, that He might save us from self-destruction.

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.