We Have To Choose
As Christians, a very serious and important passage of scripture we fail to pay enough attention to is Deuteronomy 30:19-20, because it says 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 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yet, many Christians don’t seem to realize that we ARE choosing either life or death, blessings or curses every day of our lives. And sadly, way too many of us are NOT choosing life and blessings, because we don’t understand what that means. Unfortunately, we are incorrectly taught in many churches today that “abundant life” comes automatically just because we say a prayer, AND THAT IS NOT TRUE! In fact, most of us have probably heard this passage of scripture many times before, or it’s more familiar paraphrase, which is “I set before you life and death choose life.” But we RARELY hear the preceding verses, 15-18, which say See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. And verse 10 leaves NO doubt that we “choose” life, prosperity and blessings if we obey the LORD our God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul. And even though a lot of preachers and teachers say we don’t have to worry about these passages, because we now live by grace and not by the law, in Matthew 5:18, Jesus said I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. And that doesn’t happen until the END of the book…NOT in the middle as some would have us believe! And it certainly ignores and disregards Romans 6:14-16, which says For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? So God’s grace obviously does NOT give us a license to sin. In fact, it’s ONLY by the grace and power of God that we’re able to avoid sin, which is the exact opposite of the perverted meaning of grace taught in many Christian circles today. And Romans 6 1-6 , with the heading “Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ“, makes it VERY clear we’re not allowed to continue in sin just because of grace, because it says What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. That’s why Luke 9:23 says Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
Fortunately, Deuteronomy 30:11-14 tells us very specifically HOW to “choose” life, because it says Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. And then in Matthew 4:4, Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ “ So there’s no way to get around it, the choice we make to be blessed and have the “abundant” life Jesus came to give us, life that overcomes the devil’s intentions to kill, steal and destroy us, our marriages and our families, is made when we spend the time it takes to KEEP the word of God in our mouths and in our hearts. And when we don’t do that, we choose death and destruction instead, because Hosea 4:6 says my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. And that should be MORE than enough to get the attention of all mothers and fathers! So as we stand for the restoration of our marriages, let’s choose life and blessings by making a renewed commitment to seriously read and study our Bibles, because then we WILL Be BLESSED and encouraged!
And we will find that IS the key to Keeping God First – Part I, as Joyce Meyer taught in her message today. And here’s Keeping God First – Part II.