A friend likes to post inspirational quotes on her Facebook page. I usually enjoy reading them (and love staying connected with her and so many others), but I couldn’t get past one particular quote. It was from self-help guru Susan Jeffers, who said, “There are no wrong choices; there are only different choices.”

No wrong choices? Really?

I don’t know about Ms. Jeffers, but I can personally attest to making hundreds (thousands?) of wrong choices in my life. Trust me, they weren’t just different, they were wrong.

To say there are no wrong choices is to say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. No absolutes, only personal preferences.

But the Bible says otherwise. There is a standard of right and wrong, and God has communicated this standard in His Word. We all have the free will to choose for ourselves. Joshua 24:15 lays out our options: “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (NIV).

Our society is filled with self-styled experts. Technology provides access to built-in audiences. Social media creates platforms as people tweet on Twitter, post on blogs, and update their Facebook pages. The ease by which we exchange information leads to a great deal of unverified data – unverified and sometimes untrue. Innuendo substitutes for fact, opinion replaces research, and emotion circumvents objectivity. People often become comfortable communicating what they want to be true, rather than what is true.

Consider something as simple as the emails you’ve received about Christians being forced off radio airwaves, or Pepsi issuing cans with “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, or Facebook postings about free Olive Garden gift cards. All hoaxes, and yet the emails and postings keep coming.

No matter how large or small our sphere of influence may be, we all have a responsibility to communicate truth. This responsibility isn’t limited to those in official teaching positions. Whether you’re a parent influencing your children or a writer teaching through your books – non-fiction and fiction – everyone influences someone, for right or wrong.

Values are communicated by how we live. By the words we speak. By the emails we forward. By the choices we make. Are we intentional about what we communicate?

What are you and I communicating with our words and our lives?