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11/11/2015 The Power in Your Choice..For years, I have felt that every thing is a choice. Today, you are living in the result of choices you’ve made in the past. We’re often told that our words have power, but the choices that you make before and after you speak are equally powerful. Your faith isn’t just in your words, it’s in what you do after you speak those words. When you’re in church, and you feel all good inside, and you speak to that mountain….do your choices indicate that you expect it to move? OR did you only choose to speak to that mountain because Pastor said you should? Today, I want to help somebody realize the power of their choices. We often take the big decisions to God, but I want to focus on the smaller ones too, because often, small choices have the biggest impacts.  Everything you do is a choice. You chose to get up (whether you were excited about it or not). You chose to go to work, or class, or wherever you went today. You chose to come to this website & to read this post (yay! welcome lol). Even your daily routines are choices. Whether you pray in the mornings, or make time for yourself, or get enough sleep; all of these are choices. Picking up your phone before you say a word to God is a choice (help us, oh God! lol). Stopping to encourage somebody is a choice. We have the power to make the decisions that could change our lives and the lives of others. The issue is that often, we give life the power to make these choices for us. We say things like “I don’t have time for that”, “I’ve got too much to do”, “this is just who I am” (that was a personal fave of mine), but at the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that at some point in our lives, we made the choices that have built our excuses. I was reading the Bible last week & I got stuck in Deuteronomy 30 (NKJV..I’m that new old school lol). Verses 15 & 16 say, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.” Then, verse 19 says, “therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…” It’s like God giving you a test & saying “psssst!!! the answer’s B.” Something that I learned in my relationship with God is life is….very repetitive, because I have to ‘crucify my flesh’ every day (sometimes multiple times lol). For example, last week, we talked about freedom, right? Maintaining freedom comes from you choosing it every day that you wake up. Happiness, joy, peace, etc. all come from God, but they stick with you as a result of your choices. Whether that be the choice to pray in the morning, or to listen to gospel music, or to set aside some time to just…be…with Jesus, they all stay with you as a result of a choice you make. Really walking with God requires you to make some decisions. These decisions extend beyond the emotional feelings that we get at church. It’s beyond your shout, dance, and tears, boo. This is something that you are going to have to decide to dedicate yourself to again & again every day of your life. A lot of times, we’ll be freed or delivered from something, and make the choices that result in that behavior because that disfunction had become our normal. However, to choose to operate in what God has freed you from is to give it free labor. If you really believe that you’re free, you’re going to have to align your decisions with that belief. In church, we often say that life and death are in the tongue. But the issue is that we choose to speak death to the wrong things. You’re speaking death to yourself instead of your storm. You’re constantly saying that it’s too hard, too much, and that you can’t handle it. That’s all a choice. When you choose to look to your issues, instead of looking to Jesus, ‘the champion who initiates and perfects your faith” (Heb. 12:2 - NLT), you’re feeding the decision to choose death, instead of the life He’s already fought for on your behalf. The power is already in you; the question is, will you choose to use it? Even God recognizes the power of a decision. I know this because He made a choice. Deut. 7:7 shows us that He made the choice to love us. He doesn’t love you because of what you have, or how many people you know. He doesn’t love you because you gave an offering this Sunday or because your grandmama prayed over you. He loves you because He knows you're worth the purpose He’s put inside of you. He didn’t force your love on you. He didn’t choose you because of where He thought you could take Him. God loves you for who you are, not what you have. He knows that you’re worth the investment He put making you and paving the way for your purpose, so He chose to love you. God’s love is not one of obligation. He is in no way required to do anything for us. Yet, everyday, in every moment, He chooses to love us too much to let us fail. God made a choice to allow you to not simply make it this far, but for you to thrive the way you are thriving. I know that this may not be the best of situations, but compared to the alternative options we had, I would say we’re not doing too bad. You have been chosen and now given a choice: life or death? Will you choose to live? Or continue to choose to speak death over yourself instead of over your situation? It’s your life, right? What will you choose to do with it? Recognize that every decision that you make matters. It’s relevant. The smallest things can bring major consequences (good…or nah). Be careful of what you decide to say, and always note what you are speaking life or death to. The enemy is hitting you enough; there’s no need to help him out. Every day that you wake up, and with every move you make, you’re faced with the decision life and death in some way. So tell me, what’s your choice? Background Music: The Corinthian Song - Micah Stampley Comments are closed.
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