THE BATTLE IS YOURS PART SEVEN

I hope that you enjoyed and had a good laugh doing your homework. Sometimes we have to just make up our minds that today I will choose to do things different.

We can learn when we step outside our own tent and into that which is different. By listening to anyone and everyone else we might or might not learn what we need to learn.

By praying and seeking the wisdom of God we can learn to discern right and wrong. Wisdom and guidance do not come easily all the time. Leaving things behind is sometimes the only way to be blessed. The choice is yours to stay in the mess or to be blessed.

Stepping out means to step away from all that is hindering to you. Abram was to go for himself. God didn’t tell him to take Lot. Lot represents that one little thing that we either cannot or will not let go of. We hang on to it. Being disobedient to God.

Well, Lord I am going to do what you are telling me to do, BUT I have to take this with me. Just in case, You do understand Lord? Well, we all know what happened God did not speak to Abram until Lot left him.

We cannot stay somewhere God tells you to leave. God will go silent on you. There will be some people that you will leave behind. There will also be things from your past that you must leave behind.

We all want answers. Tell me where I am going and I will go. God says leave. No we tell Him, show me and I will leave. No God says, leave and I will show you. And you can have that argument with God for the next hundred years. Note I said YOU could argue. God is not going to argue with you, but He is going to win.

Sometime you have to come to a place where you have nothing but God and if God doesn’t come through you are finished. You have to come to the point where you are so hungry, if it means you don’t have one friend the rest of your life you are still going to get out of the culture you are in that is killing you and get into a culture that you can grow and strive in.

Choose life.

Every choice that you will make will affect everybody around you. If you don’t leave you won’t get to the next step. Walk away from what God is telling you to walk away from. Stay where God tells you to stay. Leave things that He tells you to leave.

Now that this is all said let us go back again to our scripture: Deuteronomy 30:19, 20

19] I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
[20] That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

If you were thinking there was some really hard way to get out of all that trash from your past, well I am sorry it is only hard if you make it hard. You break the curses by stepping into the obedience of God.

By stepping into His obedience you are stepping out of darkness into life, not only for yourself but your children after you.

This morning I got a phone call from a young lady. She is blaming herself for things that happened in her life. Her grandmother passed away after she went to visit her. Her uncle died before she could get to him to give CPR. She blames herself. If she would not have went and saw her grandmother she would not have died. If she had got there sooner her uncle would not have died. The interesting thing though was as we talked the sin that was in her life came out. The life style she was living is what was opening the door for all kinds of curses to come into her life. She had not spoke to God in 18 years. We spoke for close to an hour. It was between 2 and 3 in the morning and she was walking down the highway of a town I have never heard of.

How did she get my number? It was on her cell phone and she had called 3 days before to see why I had called her. I had not ever called her. I took it as a chance to speak to her of Christ and told her anytime, any place call me I will be here for you.

Last night she was in the depths of depression when she called, she wanted to take her life. We talked for all that time; I did not tell her life style was wrong. Oh I could have told her she was a sinner from the first words she said, instead I showed her love, I listened, and I let her talk. Then the Lord laid it in my Spirit to ask her when was the last time she had told Him she loved Him. I asked her to ask God to put His arms around her and she did. She told me that the greatest peace she had ever felt came on her.

Within seconds the phone went dead. I asked God to protect her and I may not know what His plan is but she knows that she is loved. He will take care of the rest.

We have to take that first step. The past cannot be changed. We can either choose to live in it or to leave it behind us. It is sometime easy and some parts are hard. Letting go is hard because we do not know what is ahead. That is where the trust and faith in God comes in. We can choose life or we can choose death. Remember what you bring with you can be done away with. It is what we take with us that will also be what we leave for others after us.

That young lady took the first step last night. She stepped into His embrace. I am sure that if the two were laid before you, of which you would choose. If we knew the answers it would be very easy to do. We look and think the answer is there, it might not be the answer you are looking for but it is the final answer to an accumulation of all that there is. That is eternal life for not only you but for those your legacy is left to.

How do we choose life? By stepping into the embrace of God. Being obedient to Him and His word. By saying the past is the past and the future is before me and I choose to walk it with Christ as my pilot.

If you thought it would be hard, it is. Leaving the past behind, all your learned ways and habits, yes it is. But each moment that you are in His embrace the path becomes smoother.

Choose life and live or choose to stay in the old and perish with it, while passing it alone to those you leave behind. The choice is yours. Which do you choose? Take a different path, the view is wonderful.

God Bless
rECj

Thank you rECj for this beautiful series. Thank you for listening to God and following His direction. People, please just remember, GOD DOES NOT TAKE ANY DAYS OR TIME OFF. He is always there for each of us. He is our very own guide and spiritual advisor. LJG