God Gives You the Choice
God gave you power. That power won’t work in spite of you, and it won’t work automatically. That power will only work when you use the abilities God placed within you in the beginning, in creation. The greatest of these abilities is the ability to decide direction and destiny in life. Man’s freewill is the greatest gift given to him by God.
Do you want to be miserable? Do you want to have a pity-party and be depressed, oppressed, regressed, or obsessed? Go ahead. You may. It’s your privilege. God gave it to you. He put within you the ability to choose.
You can choose to be wherever you want to be. You can be the “tail†if you want to, but I’m going to be the “head†(Deuteronomy 28:13)! You can live in the outskirts, in the shallow waters, if you want to, but there are people who have plunged into the deep waters. You can live on the hillside if you want to, but there are those who have climbed the high mountains in God. You can soar with the wings of turkeys, but there are some who have decided to soar with the wings of eagles. They are part of the generation that won’t settle for partial commitment to God.
In other words, you’ve got a God-given right to decide how far you’ll go and what direction you’ll go, and even God can’t violate that decision. If you want to go the right way, you must position yourself by how you think and what you speak.
Paul gave Timothy some advice about this in Second Timothy 3:15:
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures,which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
What does that mean? Paul is telling Timothy, “Since you were a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise through faith.†Paul didn’t say that the Scriptures had made Timothy wise; he said they were able to make him wise.
That means you can hear a sermon but leave the church just as weak spiritually as when you entered. Unless you mix what you’re hearing with faith, it’s almost better that you didn’t hear the Word! The Bible says, “the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it†(Hebrews 4:2).
The Word will bring faith with it. However, there is a way that people can receive the Word of God but not receive the faith of the Word. How? The Word will always bring a responsibility with it. People can reject that responsibility.
When God speaks to you, He gives you a responsibility. When He says, “You’re my child,†He’s saying, “You’re committed to Me.†And when He says, “You’re the light,†He’s saying, “Now you’re going to shine as a witness.†That’s a commitment.
So if we choose to receive one part of the Word and say, “Yes, I’m a light, but I’m a silent light,†we’re not mixing the Word with faith.
We must decide to mix what we hear with faith so we can perform it.
Adapted from The Hidden Power of Your Words book by Dr. Christian Harfouche.
