choices

I wonder when God is going to do something about this problem! Have you ever asked that question? If so, you may be surprised to find out that the answer depends 100 percent on you.

There's an incident in Mark 5 that will show you what I mean. Jesus had just gotten out of a boat and people were pressing all around Him, "thronging Him," it says. They had Him shoved up against the shoreline when suddenly there came a man moving through that crowd to get to Jesus.

If you were given the choice between life and death, which would you choose? The answer seems obvious. But, in reality, it's not.

You see, choosing death doesn't necessarily mean jumping from the nearest cliff. It's much more subtle than that.

The Bible says death is being carnally minded, being entangled in this present worldly realm. The Bible also tells us what life is. "My son, attend to my words," says Proverbs 4:20-22, "...for they are life!"

To be worldly minded is death. To be Word-minded is life.

Satan has had us in a poverty mentality so long that it's tough for us to grasp just how intensely God really does desire to prosper us—even though He's demonstrated that desire again and again.

Take Abraham, for example. God made him an extremely wealthy man. Genesis 13:2 says he was rich in cattle, in silver and in gold.

Then, of course, there was Solomon. The Bible says he surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.

You've been there many times, standing in the valley of decision. Perched precariously between victory and defeat. On one side of you is the word of the world authored by Satan that says, for example, "You're not going to get healed." On the other side of you, the Word of God is saying, "My Word is yea and amen" and "By whose stripes, ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). Who will determine how it all turns out? You will. You're the establishing witness.

The company you keep has such an influence on your spiritual life. Fellowshiping with godly people will help speed you on to victory, while fellowshiping with those who are ungodly will drag you down to defeat.

That’s why the Bible has some things to say about your friends. That’s why it tells you to separate yourself from the world. Because evil companions will corrupt you.

Now, I’m not talking about ministry. Jesus Himself ministered to sinners. You have to mix with them to preach to them and pray for them. What I’m talking about here are the people you choose for friends.

The high life...or the low life? God’s kind of life...or the world’s kind of life? You can’t have them both. It’s one or the other. You have to choose.

You may try to put off that choice. You may try to hang on to the low life while reaching out for the high life at the same time, so you can see if it’s something you really want before you give up everything the world has to offer. But, believe me, you’re not that tall!

One of the most exciting things I ever discovered about God’s law of sowing and reaping was the fact that financial harvests are not seasonal. If you plant year round, you can be receiving year round.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying your harvest will come instantly. It usually won’t. You may have to wait for it for several months. What I’m saying is, if you’ll keep planting consistently, you’ll receive just as consistently. If you’ll continually cast your bread on the water, eventually it will come in on every wave!

When money gets tight, it's always a temptation to cut down on your giving. After all, it seems like the logical thing to do. Don't do it! You'll end up cutting off the flow of God's financial blessings just when you need them most.

Many of us, even though we're believers, have seen grief and sorrow as such a natural part of life that we haven't even questioned them. In fact, if we're honest, we'd have to admit there are times when we actually want to feel sad and sorry for ourselves.

Why would we choose to feel sorrow? Because sorrow has an emotional kick to it. It offers a surge of feeling that, in the beginning stages, is almost intoxicating.

I remember the first time I went with the Oral Roberts crusade team to a healing meeting. I was a student and a member of his aircraft crew. I had been a believer a little over four years and knew so little about the things of God, especially meetings like these. However, I was part of the team and eager to learn.

I followed the team inside this huge auditorium. It was filled with sick people. The place smelled, it was so full of disease. Just walking in there sent chills of fear up my spine.

How many blessings are you going to receive from the Word of God? It depends on how many you expect to receive. When God measures them out to you, He’ll be using your measuring stick, not His own. He always works that way.

Two people can hear God’s Word about healing, for example. One will measure it with faith. “Praise God, by His stripes I was healed!” he’ll say. “I believe that with all my heart, and I’m going to keep on believing it until I receive my healing.”

The devil has used the traditional teaching of Paul’s thorn in the flesh to talk believers out of the blessings of God for years, to try to convince us to settle for everything from sickness to sin—and to do it of our own free will.

It is perhaps the most destructive and the most widely accepted misinterpretation of Scripture that exists in the Body of Christ today. I’ve gone into countries to preach to people who hardly had any knowledge of the Word at all and still I have found that somehow they’d been taught about Paul’s thorn.

And most of them have been taught wrongly.

What happens when you hesitate to do something God has told you to do? Your adversary takes the first step. The devil gets the jump on you.

If you want to live by faith, hesitation is one of the most hazardous habits you could ever have. It comes from being indecisive. The Bible says a man like that is “unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything he thinks, feels, decides” (The Amplified Bible).

You know the story. Satan came to Adam’s wife in the form of a serpent and deceived her into disobeying God. Adam, although he was not deceived, followed suit.

When Satan came into the Garden that day, he didn’t have any power at all. He had to come in like a sneak, not even talking to Adam directly but talking to his wife.

Now Adam was standing there, and he should have kicked him out right then. But he didn’t. He set aside the command God had given him and did what Satan told him to do instead. And when he did that, he made Satan his lord.

Failures and disappointments. Aches and pains from the past that just won’t seem to go away. Most of us know what it’s like to suffer from them but too few of us know just what to do about them. So we limp along, hoping somehow they’ll magically stop hurting.

God’s going to get you for that! Most of us have said that kind of thing jokingly for years. We’ve somehow believed that God slaps us down with pain and punishment every time we sin. But that’s just not true. There are deadly wages for sin, but God is not the one who’s doling them out.

Most of us would never dream this verse could apply to us. After all, we’re believers! We’d never say that there is no God.

But maybe we should think again. It’s true that with our mouths we would never say something like that...but don’t we sometimes say it with our actions?

We say it by sinning just a little here and there and thinking it won’t matter. We’ll go to an immoral movie or have a gossip session about the pastor, ignoring God’s command to the contrary.

With our actions we’re saying, “There is no God.”

Too often we ask God to fix the problems around us when what He really wants to do is solve the problem within us. I did that myself for years where my weight was concerned. I prayed and prayed for God to help me lose weight. Yet I experienced repeated failure. I lost literally hundreds of pounds, only to gain them right back again.

Finally one day, I made a firm decision. I told God, "I am not going one step further until I find out what to do about this!" Then I went on a fast, shut myself away from everyone, and determined to hear from God.

Choosing to side with God's Word is a continual challenge. It's not something you do just once. It's a process of choosing to believe and act upon the Word of God over and over in every circumstance.