Ready or Not, Here I Come.

Ready or Not, Here I Come

“Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭11:26-28‬

It is so overwhelmingly interesting to me how many choices we are faced with as we go through life. From the easy to the hard. We are peppered with choices every single day, sometimes hundreds of choices. Which lane is faster, should I eat this, what shoes should I wear with this outfit, and what will I worship?  That’s right, I said what will I worship. If you aren’t worshiping God, you are worshiping something else. If you aren’t placing God at the front of every single thing in your life, something else is at the front. This means your family, your friends and your relationships will be pointed to that something else - because that is your choice.  You decide what to do. 

In a life filled with choices, there should be a clear and obvious choice in who, not what, you should worship. Our God in Heaven. 

Unfortunately, we turn to money, possessions, people and ourselves. It is so easy to do. And the only reason I write so much and so passionately about what we worship - is because I worshipped all the wrong things. I know first hand what it is like to believe in God but not to believe on God. I lived daily believing I was doing okay even though I knew I wasn’t living right.  If you knew me then, really knew me like my wife and my brother and my close friends knew me - they could tell you. 

You know it’s bad when your bad living starts to be normal. I saw this in my dad. He smoked so much, the pictures on our walls smelled like cigarettes. He drank in the morning and went to work. And every weekend he would have a different guest over, some would stay longer, most left before morning. And this became his lifestyle. He didn’t think twice about it and sadly, neither did I.  The apple doesn’t fall........you get the picture. 

But wait! There’s good news. We can make a choice to serve God and not ourselves. We can continue to feed our desires, our lusts or our addictions or we can choose to worship God.  We can feed on prayer and the Bible, and we can fill our life with choices surrounding God. 

People get turned away because of this choice. You know why? It’s easier for them to live a life unchanged. To continue in the poor choices and bad decisions. People look at me and are skeptical.  Some people believe that being good is good enough.  They hold onto secrets and sin. And just because no one else knows, they think it’s okay. 

Remember when you were younger and played hide and seek? If I close my eyes, they won’t see me. Remember that game?  Just because no one else knows, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. God gives you a choice, blessings or a curse. Worship Him or other things. 

I used to point the finger at other people when I should’ve been pointing it at myself all along. I’m just saying that, at some point you have to realize that everyone has something they need to change in their life. There are choices they shouldn’t make.  Better ones that they should. Decisions that should only be made with God in your heart. 

Not many people really read these devotions, and if there is one person that does and it turns their life to God, then well done.  Or what if it brings them back to the God they walked away from. Or if it’s a chance for me to tell them about the God they don’t know. 

I truly don’t understand why so many people are ashamed to admit that they worship God, that they love Jesus and that they are proud of their Christianity. We have become so phobic of our religion it has stifled our ability to share an amazing story with people. 

It’s so easy for us to talk about football, hunting, shopping, vacations - we neglect the single reason we are here.  We’d rather stand around and joke, curse and look at women - knowing it’s wrong, but doing it anyway. Or we’d rather talk about all the things we do for people or what we have in our lives. People - it’s because of God. 

Wouldn’t you rather talk about what God has done in your life?

I have no problem talking about me because my conversation leads to God. I am not ashamed of where I’ve come from. I’m sorry for the people that it has hurt and I get nervous about the future. And I’m not perfect. Not even close. Neither are you. We all have sin in our lives. 

We all think we can’t be Holy.  And it’s just not true. You can be as close as you want to be to being Holy - it’s a choice. You won’t be sinless, and you won’t be Holy like God, but you can sin less through your choices. You can choose to worship God and pull the bad things out of your life. People are inherently good. It’s their choices that define them. 

My decision to turn away from so many crazy things and turn toward God has been the best choice I’ve ever made in my life period.  It’s not going to change the way people look at me, or my past, and that doesn’t matter. My heart and soul are focused on living for God. And through this I’ve seen amazing changes in my wife and my youngest son.  

My wife reads her devotions and her Bible and prays all the time.  It’s an amazing change. How many ten year olds do you know that get to school early to share their Bible reading with interested classmates? Or are working on a reading plan that was given to him from a prison missionary preacher?  Wouldn’t you rather brag on God than yourself?

Think about your choices today. Ask God to come into your life and especially during those hard choices. Send a text, email or letter to someone today and let them know that you love them and that God loves them. 

“And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭33:1‬