Our Choice

I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse.  Choose life so that you and your children will live.  And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him.  Oh yes, his is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

(Deuteronomy 30:19-20 MSG)

Everything we do in a situation or in our day is a choice.  We can choose to obey God and follow His commands or we can choose to follow the world.  Following the world would mean choosing our fleshly desire when it may not be Christ-like.  It would include falling to temptation that we know is sinful.  Choosing any way but God's way can lead to spiritual death.  Just because we make one bad choice does not send us plummeting to hell, but it does kill our spirit a little every time we choose our way, or the worlds, over God's.  Over time bad choices will dull our spiritual senses and it can lead to spiritual death for sure but in many cases it also can lead to a physical death.  Choosing God's way, although it's not guaranteed to keep us physically alive, it will most certainly keep us from dying  a spiritual death, which is way worse.   

The difference between choosing God's way and the world's is the power we receive to carry out that which we choose.  For example, if you choose to go on a mission trip in one of the most poor stricken places in the world where there are threats of disease, very hot weather and dangerous people and that choice came from God's call on your heart then you would also get the power to carry out that call.    If you felt Him leading you towards this trip and you decided to go, then His power would go with you.  On the other hand, if you make a choice to do sinful things with a group of people that you know aren't listening to God, if  and when you come to a difficult situation, you most likely won't have God's power to help you out.  You may call on Him and in certain situations He may show up but you also may have pretty tough consequences that He will not help you out of.  

So you see we are way better off choosing life over death.  We are protected by God's power and strength when we choose to do things God's way over the world's way.  Just remember that when choosing life there may be difficulty, there may be pain and heartbreak or physical discomfort but that choice you are making will always come with the power to carry out the mission.  Your human strength is nothing compared to the strength that comes with living a life for God.