Day 41 - Choice or Default

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries                         LMCM

Nacogdoches, Texas                                                           Gal. 2:20  KJV

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength - # 44

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       almi@abidinglife.com

More about “choice.”  Michael brings up a terrific issue in this matter…”stuck” with the way things are?  How hopeless is that!  One of the greatest victories in Life With Christ In Us is that we have HOPE!  There is no hope apart from Christ, and when a Christian “feels” or “believes” that they have no “way” out…no “way” out?!?  Jesus is The Way.  And every other “way” is not The Way!  Well, amen.  Read and find out how to pass on HOPE (JESUS) to someone “stuck”…

DAY 41

Choice or Default

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants. –Deuteronomy 30:19

Two addicts receive the same information, and subsequently one stops substance abuse and the other does not. Why is that? Is it not choice? There is a deception involving the belief by those who need to make a choice that they cannot do so, that it is impossible in certain areas of life to choose a different way. Many simply believe that they are stuck with their obsessions, addictions, anger, self-righteousness, and all the other deeds of the flesh. They are like the person standing in the snow outside of his house, holding the key to the locked door and screaming, “Would someone please let me in?” How can the believer be stuck and locked out of victory when he is the only one holding the key? Let me illustrate. One man said to me, “I am addicted to pornography!” At that I responded, “I imagine your family is sick of watching porno with you!” He replied, “Oh, no! I never look at it around them!” My question is simple: How can he be addicted if he can choose when and where he watches the porno? How can a drug addict not be able to choose against taking drugs when he chooses to purchase them and chooses to do them out of sight? We hate to be confronted with this truth, but we are doing exactly what we want to do and choose to do! We are not unable to choose; we simply do not want to choose the right thing. We are in unbelief and are constantly choosing. We have to pick between the words of Jesus and the voice of the flesh. When we CHOOSE the flesh, it is an inescapable fact that we have chosen bondage and have chosen on the side that resists the spirit. We are where we are today because of personal choice.

Some will argue, “It was not my choice to be molested, to have an alcoholic parent, to be emotionally and verbally abused, to be abandoned, to be unloved, and more.” All quite true, and at first a person may well react out of instinct. However, with maturity he chooses through his lifestyle what his reaction toward earlier events will be. After getting the proper information, some choose not to see God working, thereby opting to remain victims and blame others, to make those around them miserable, to make others pay, to live in self-hatred, and to try to undo the past by duplicating it. Two people with a common, horrific event in their lives may, years later, have developed into very different people, with one being sweet and the other bitter. Why? We want to avoid the obvious and give excuses, but the fact is that one believed that choice was greater than the past, and the other did not. 

The author in Deuteronomy gives a strong “warning” to his readers:  “I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today…”  WOW!  Got my attention!  Do I think I don’t HAVE a choice?  Do I think my choice DOESN’T MATTER?  Think again, Lee!  In fact, the whole Book of Deuteronomy is about life and death, blessings and curses…and it being a matter of making a choice.  And as Yogi Berra would have said…”You can’t not make a choice by not making a choice!”  Some of us remember Yogi…

Praise God we get to make a choice or choices.  Count me out of being one who doesn’t think I have a choice, or that I am stuck and can’t make a choice. 

I love Michael’s words which make choosing so plain and simple:

“We are doing exactly what we want to do and choose to do!  We are not unable to choose…we have to pick between the words of Jesus and the voice of the flesh…we are where we are today because of personal choice.

And the writer summed it up…”choose LIFE.”  Oh, yeah, another writer quoted Jesus: “I am the way, the truth, and the LIFE.”  I choose JESUS!  He is my LIFE!

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        

Red – GP, Greatest Promises

Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

P. O. Box 633244    Nacogdoches, Tx 75963                                     936-559-5696