"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live" Deuteronomy 30:19
In this verse, death doesn't mean death in the dying sense, it means allowing your life to become filled with misery rather than living a godly life. Life = living to the full, death = doing little, consumed by sadness and misery.
We make so many decisions each day and don't even realise. These are both small and big decisions that can impact on our lives in untold ways. One of the best decisions that we can make is to take more responsibility for the anger, upset and frustration in our lives as we can do something about it. All we have to do is make the right choice, both in the moment of the decision and on a broader plane. You have the power. It is within you. You just need to tap into it.
"It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is our holiness, righteousness and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30
God's wisdom has entered us through Jesus Christ but we may not realise that yet. You may just need to dig a little deeper inside yourselves to find it. Then you can begin to live deeper, going beyond what you want and feel and starting to think deeper.
If you live in Christ, the Bible says that you are free but that freedom comes with responsibility. Freedom is not free. Jesus gave it to us free but it is not free. We are free to make the right or wrong choices, "A man reaps what he sows" Galatians 6:7. If you make good choices you will reap a good harvest.
We grumble that all the things that God expects us to do are so hard; forgiving, helping, being wise and making right choices. But they are not, it's those very things themselves that feed into misery that are the hardest. If you want to be happy and feel at peace then you need to go deeper into what you want, think then, feel and see if it's a right choice.
In Luke 5:1-7 we read of how Peter and his fellow fishers had been out all night fishing in their boats and come the morning had come back to shore with not one fish in their nets. They were tired and disgruntled and feeling as if they had failed. Jesus got into the boat and told them to go back out but into the deep water this time. Some of the men moaned, they wanted their beds but Peter said that on Jesus' word they would go lower the nets in a deeper place, and they went out again into the sea. Peter and the other fishermen did not want to put any more effort in, they thought that they had reached their limits, but because Jesus spoke, first Peter, then all the others said "I will". You personal "I will" is one of the strongest things that you have in your life and you need to hang on to it tightly. Never lose your sense of "I will". Incidentally, when Peter and his friends put their nets out in the deeper water, they caught so many fish that they had to call for back up to bring the huge haul to shore. "A man reaps what he sows" Galatians 6:7
When David said "This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it" Psalm
118:24, it is suspected that David wasn't having a particularly great day and he spoke those words to try to encourage himself to get down onto that deeper level where fleshly feelings don't matter. He succeeded and made the decision to not let things affect him. We can all do this, we just need to engrain it into our minds to constantly seek deeper.
Go beyond what you want, think and feel. Use wisdom and make the right choices. They may not necessarily feel right at the time but you know deep down that things will turn out right for you in the eyes of the Lord. Wisdom has a tendency to do now what it knows it is going to be happy with at a later date. This doesn't always make it easy for us, but if we use our faith then we know we can trust in His choices. Making the right choice won't always benefit you today but it builds a solid foundation for when that choice comes to fruition.
Proverbs 2:1-6 We should be afraid to disobey God but most people aren't. When we know that we have upset God we should be in a state of trembling and show Him reverence through love. Sadly, many Christians don't. If you feel the need, seek and cry out for wisdom every day of your life, start each day by asking God to help you find your deeper, wiser level and guide you how to use it so that you stop reaping bad harvests.
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