Deuteronomy 30:19 NKJV
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.
When God created us He gave us the power of choice. He gave us the ability to choose.
Our lives are framed by the choices we make every day – from the moment we wake up until we go to bed, we make hundreds of “choices” during the day.
There is no such thing as luck— good or bad.
In fact, take that term completely out of your vocabulary.
The world of the spirit does not operate on luck. It operates and responds to the choices we make, good or bad.
The world of the spirit doesn’t operate on what you mean, it operates on what you say.
“But I didn’t mean it, then why did you say it.”
Your voice is your address in the spirit.
It’s not come what may, it’s come what you say.
It’s not luck that determines how things turn out in our lives—it’s choices.
When we make good ones, things go well for us. When we make bad ones, things go wrong.
People ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Because good people make bad choices.
I’m not referring to trials, challenges and persecution we experience when we follow after God.
I’m talking about people who are always waiting on God to do something but they are not taking responsibility for the choices they’ve made that landed them there in the first place.
To a large extent, your quality of life today is a product of the choices you made yesterday.
Some might say, “But Pastor, some of the things that have happened to me was not my choice. I didn’t choose that”.
I agree with you but how you respond now to what happened to you is your choice.
The choices you make today—the words you choose to speak, the thoughts you choose to think on, the people you choose to associate with—will determine your quality of life in the future.
All these fall in your garden and they are your responsibilities.
· Feelings
· Attitudes
· Beliefs
· Behaviour
· Choices
· Values
· Limits
· Talents
· Thoughts
· Desires
· Love
Proverbs 12:26 NKJV
The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.
You are the righteousness of God so choose your friends carefully.
Be careful who you associate with.
Hang around wicked people, learn their ways and it will lead you astray and away from God’s best plan for your life.
1 Corinthians 15:33 TPT
So stop fooling yourselves! Evil companions will corrupt good morals and character.
You must be able to make choices and decisions without being influenced by others.
Sometimes we are more concerned with what others think of us than what God thinks. So we worship at the altar of acceptance. But in trying to be accepted, there is the danger of compromising the very things we are called to stand for.
Listen carefully: When you are in a compromising situation, that is not the time to get weaker, that’s the time to get tougher.
Whatever you compromise to keep you going to lose anyway.
I worked for a guy who stood with me in not bribing a company and was awarded a R750 000 contract.
Some people don’t connect the dots. They experience bad consequences even 3-5 years later and don’t realise that it was connected to the choices they made years before.
Deuteronomy 30:19 NKJV
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.
God gave us the power to choose. We can either choose life or we can choose death.
If you choose life, the result will be blessing. If you choose death, the result will be the curse.
God leaves the choice up to us and if you are not sure what to choose, He encourages you to “choose life”.
God cannot make the choice for you.
He will inspire you, He will empower you, He will minister to you and speak to you but He will not force your hand or choose for you.
You are as close to God today as you’ve chosen to be.
James 4:8 NLT
Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
God is telling us to choose life. Why?
Because the choices you make today will determine where you end up tomorrow.
Everyone has the right to choose, but once you’ve chosen, you become a servant to that choice. So be careful how you choose.
You have the freedom to choose, but you don’t have the freedom to choose the consequences of your choice. So be careful how you choose.
You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences.
And you are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with.
Your choices affect your children.
The choices you make don’t only affect you, it affects your descendants as well. So be careful how you choose.
If you want your children to live then choose life.
If you are a parent and you’ve made some bad choices in the past that has affected your children in a negative way, then don’t condemn yourself. Stop feeling guilty and beating yourself up. That is not of God.
You can now choose to pray for them. You can love them and you can believe God to draw them closer to Him.
Jonathan Edwards was a great preacher who was known as the father of the great awakening in the US.
His father and great-grand father were also preachers of the gospel. Jonathan Edwards, when they traced more than 400 of his direct descendants, this is what they found:
2 Vice Presidents;
6 congressman;
14 university presidents;
100 professors;
100 ministers of the gospel or missionaries;
120 were lawyers, judges and doctors.
They also found many authors, editors and journalists.
Almost every major American industry had an ancestor of Jonathan Edwards involved in it.
They traced back the family-tree of a man Abraham Jakes, who also lived in the latter half of the 1700’s.
Jakes was a murderer who never believed in God. Among the over 1200 direct descendants traced, an astounding pattern was found.
400 alcoholics and drug addicts,
810 paupers,
130 convicted criminals,
80 habitual thieves and pickpockets
7 murderers who were hanged or died in an electric chair.
Of the 1200, only 20 ever learned a trade and half of them learned it in prison.
These two examples prove to us that the choices we make, not only affect us but also the future generations to come.
God can’t decide for you but once you make a decision, He will back you completely with His power in order to carry out that decision.
1 Kings 18:21 MSG
Elijah challenged the people: “How long are you going to sit on the fence? If God is the real God, follow him; if it’s Baal, follow him. Make up your minds!”
Stop playing church. Stop being on both sides. Don’t be a fence sitter. Stop being lukewarm.
Choose life. Choose God. Choose the Blessing. Choose to live on the victory side of life.
Joshua 24:15 NKJV
And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Joshua saw that the children of God were being tempted to serve other gods as soon as they got into the land.
But he made up his mind and made the choice to serve the Lord in the midst of others serving other gods.
Watch out when God starts blessing you and raising you up. Don’t get all puffed up and think you all that. Stay humble and keep serving God. Don’t start serving other gods.
But here’s the good news.
Your last choice is not your last choice.
You can make a new choice that will set you on a new course that will bring about a new cycle of blessing in your life.
Jesus chose you. Will you choose Him today?
John 15:16 NKJV
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
I remember running from God instead of running towards Him. I could sense His presence hovering over me wherever I went.
The last week before I got saved became stronger. I knew I had to make a choice to follow Him and His ways.
My prayer for you is that in your darkest moment, God will rise up big in you and help you choose life and not death.
So today, I encourage you to choose life.
The prodigal son made some bad choices. He decided he was going to party and spend all that he had. And his choices landed him in big trouble.
But He a made a new choice and came back to His Father. His Father was waiting with open arms to forgive him, embrace him and give him a fresh start.
The older brother also made a choice. He made a choice to stay at home and then became angry and resentful.
Your heavenly Father is not angry with you. Even if you made some bad choices, He still loves you and is waiting to restore you. All you have to do is repent and open the door and choose Jesus.
God is not counting up all your mistakes, sins, and wrongdoings. He has cancelled them.
2 Corinthians 5:19 AMPC
It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).
Even though you can’t go back and make a brand new start, you can start from now and make a brand new ending.
You can set a new course by making a new choice that will create a new cycle of blessing in your life.
Stop blaming yourself. Stop blaming others. Stop blaming the government. Stop blaming your parents.
Forgive yourself, forgive others and start making new choices that will create a better future for you.
Our God is the Great Rectifier, the Great Changer, and the Great One of Grace that turns our mistakes for our good.