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"Do you realize that in Heaven you and I will have the ability to choose? You may be asking, 'So what’s the big deal about that?' You have to understand that choice is a really big deal. God is banking His entire plan for all creation on our choosing Him."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 145.
You’ve been there, I’m sure. There’s no time left on the clock and you have but one chance to score the winning points. No matter what sport you played, that moment is one you don’t soon forget. For some of us that moment is filled with great memories as victory was ours. For others of us, our falling short feels like a defining moment in our lives at times.
It may be hard to believe but God knows that feeling of looming victory and impending defeat as well as we do. Crazy thing is that our choices play a big role in that victory or defeat. That’s a wild thing to consider as far as I’m concerned.
You see, God has given us a power that I don’t believe we really have a great appreciation of. The power of choice is something that is so easy to take for granted. This is especially the case when the number of choices we have are more than we really deserve.
The thing is, is that we really are like our Father in Heaven. He too has choice. Why wouldn’t we be blessed with the power of choice when our creator enjoys that power as well? Check out how today’s Bible reading highlights choice from God’s perspective.
How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. Ephesians 1:4-6 (MSG)
God chose us! Wow, it doesn’t get much better than that. The most powerful force we will ever know, decided long before you and I ever came along to lavish His love on us. He could have chose to love anything else He created. But, He chose to love us. I think we all need to stop a minute and let that sink in. God chose to love you and me.
I have to be honest with you. I haven’t given God many reasons to chose to love me. I have done things that could be classified as literally spitting in the face of my Heavenly Father. Haven’t you done the same?
Why would God choose to love us in spite of our failing love for Him? I really don’t have a good answer for that question. I hope to be able to ask Him that question one day when I see Him face to face.
Not only has God chose to love us, He chose to adopt us into His family. We stand complete as brothers and sisters to Jesus Himself! I hope that too amazes you. It should. Again, we have done nothing and, frankly will never be able to do anything that will earn us this right to be called Children of the Most High God.
I could go on and on about how amazing it is that God chose you and that He chose me. But, for today’s presentation, I want to focus on the power we have been given with this thing called choice.
When we choose to love our God we are unleashing a power comparable to that God has in His life. Satan is doing all he can to make it so that we will chose to let our love lie dormant in our world. He makes the evil of this world do things in the hopes that we will think that God’s love isn’t for us. That evil can get us to a place where we can actually choose to turn our backs on this God that chose us.
It is when we are trapped in victim thinking ways that choices take on a power that typically causes victims all around us. Victim thinking can drive us to choose to do things to ourselves and to others that mimic the evil in this world. Staying stuck in victim thinking is such a pleasing thing for Satan to consider.
It is when the victor recognizes who he or she really is that choice can turn things around in world changing ways. When we realize the amazing fact that God chose us, it sometimes gets easier to chose Him in ways that makes others realize their potential as a victor as well.
Want to know what God’s “hail Mary” play in the last minutes of this game called life is? He is banking on you and on me to chose Him in a world working overtime to get us to chose otherwise. The victor who choses to love God in spite of what their circumstances looks like makes God’s plan for victory come alive.
Isn’t it time to get into the game and stay there? Chose to love God no matter what the score is in your life today. Your victor status takes on a power backed by an all powerful God that chose you before you ever came into existence. Your choice has power – use it wisely today.
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