Are we only willing to make the comfortable choices and decisions, or are we willing to do what is right whatever the cost or audience?
Easter is always a time of contemplation for me, 23 years ago I chose to be, and was Baptised. So choices and decisions have been on my mind today…
You always have choice… in your situations.
Albeit I accept the choices and decisions we make or are faced with, can be difficult ones, or seem like they are made in impossible situations, but how much do we really believe and hold onto, that our God is God of the impossible? Do we find ourselves in impossible situations and in turn, does the image of the mountain before us simply defer or deter our right choices and decisions? What is impossible to us, is more than possible with God, with a blink of the eye. An important contemplation:
Is our faith in ourselves or God?
Also, consider this. I had a vision not long back of a huge mountain in front of me, the kind where normally you would have a road running up towards it but then you have to climb it. However, in this vision the road was not like that, it ran parallel across the scene, right in front of me before even getting to the mountain. This road was glowing, beaming bright, representing God’s road. Decision time, do I make the choice to step onto this road and completely avoid the mountain, or do I choose to do it ‘my way’ or the ‘usual’ way and have a mountain climb to endure? The scripture that comes to mind is:
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20
Also
“A voice of one calling:
“In the desert prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.”
Isaiah 40:3,4
So I am saying that if you exercise that mustard seed of faith, that mountains do not even have to be in your field of vision. You can choose to step on God’s road and He will take you nowhere near those mountains. They are no longer in sight, therefore destroyed.
Anniversaries
See not only is it the anniversary of my Baptism today, but it is also an anniversary of a bad house fire we had when my son was about 3 years old. Now this day I was at work and had called home. My young son had answered the phone, dad was upstairs, due to being deaf had not heard the phone ring. My young son was just garbling to me over the phone and I really couldn’t understand him, so just kept on telling him to go get his dad. Now at this time, we had a couple of pets and one of them was a Kakariki, like a budgie/parrot.
This bird made the loudest warning noise I have ever heard come from him, and I knew it was a warning, something ‘inside me’ told me so that something was very wrong. Then the phone line just went dead, no tone, just dead silent. So as it was around 11am, I then told my supervisor that I needed to go on early lunch and that something was not right, so she agreed. When I got home or should I say turned round our street corner, I saw smoke billowing out of my house from every part possible, with the fire brigade, ambulance and police there!
A double-edged sword
Now I am sharing this today as a double-edged sword. One because it shows how ‘God in me’ warned me whilst at work that something was gravely wrong, not only did I listen, hear … I obeyed that and followed the leading and went home. Yes, it was a bad situation, however, God was with me before, during and after the event.
Secondly which gets me onto my next point, I am sharing it because today the enemy is trying to drag me down with the memory, as in things like the repetitive dreams I had afterwards of my son burnt in the living room (which did not happen, because all I kept saying to him was go get your dad, he did just that and dad blocked them into our bedroom and they were rescued out of the window by the firemen) … so what was the purpose of this dream if not to instill more fear into me and drive more of a wedge between me and God, by me blocking out what God did that day for my family.
Everything that happens in my life
So for me it seems there is a truth in: for every God thing that happens in my life … that satan tries to block my sight from it by his lies or getting me to focus on the bad. God is due praises for saving my family and not letting satan win by having them die!
As Jesus spoke and calmed the storm, you should speak life into your storms and the seas will calm. Your life is more than a battlefield it is also a picture of an oasis, a haven, a beacon for all to see. You are not only God’s warriors, you are God’s mouthpiece, you are God’s messengers. You are God’s angels on earth. Be His love and peace to all you meet, including yourself. Let all you meet be in no doubt as to where your manna is from and who is Your King and Master.
Never give up, never give in…
Never give in to the enemy. No matter what goes on around you, war and death…this is but a small part or a physical show of a spiritual reality. Fear is an enemy. Never in any circumstance allow negative fear to win. Love conquers all and fear has no place in that.
Think of it this way as we are in the season …
Jesus on the cross, positionally was in the middle of the 2 thieves.
Have you ever considered why he was in the middle?
Was it that only one had a choice on the cross to turn to Jesus or both?
Nailed to the cross themselves, the thieves, completely vulnerable to the crowds and the world, for all to see and hear what they said.
There is always hope
Do you think that final act on his ‘deathbed’ … the thief who turned to Jesus and spoke to the other thief … in turn ‘spoke’ to the crowd? do you think people in the crowd ‘learnt a lesson’ that day, other than seeing Jesus hanging there? In one sense that thief became a man of God and a preacher in his short time of faith!
The other thief represents your choice in this muse … you can choose life or death….one chose life and was told that was his reward on his choice … Paradise, the other one could have also chose the same, but instead like satan in the desert with Jesus after his baptism, goaded Jesus and chose death.
Jesus could have transported elsewhere I am sure, like Philip did with the Ethiopian, however he followed His Father’s bidding, however hard that was to do.
Your have a choice
Jesus too had choice, Jesus’ choice was just always the Father’s bidding, why isn’t ours? you should ask yourselves…
Do I serve myself or God?
Should I trust myself or God?
Can I choose my way or God’s way?
Am I only seeing mountains or God’s road in my situations?
We learn our Father’s voice by talking, listening, and putting into action what we hear. The truth is that people are constantly experiencing the inspired working of God in their lives but they have been so trained to pass it off as coincidence that they are oblivious to what He does. As we consciously allow God’s Gifts and Fruits to move through us, the evidence of God’s Word in us becomes plain for us and everyone else to see. As His light shines brighter, the Fruit becomes more evident, God manifests (reveals) Himself through us. We are on God’s highway!
God is not limited to the Bible
God is constantly speaking and is not limited to the Bible alone. What the Bible really shows us is how God was evident in other peoples lives, showing His relationship with them as individuals, to His people and mankind. His desire for reconciliation …
” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”