United Church of God

Faith Comes By Hearing (Blog post #32)

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A Congregation of the United Church of God

Faith Comes By Hearing (Blog post #32)

   Choose  Life

By Anita G. Hamill,  (Eureka)

Coming into the God’s church in my late twenties, I still had so much to learn about the power of words.  I was painfully shy and didn’t even talk to people at church for the first couple of years,  I just followed my only friend around and nodded my head yes or no.  They used to call me her shadow!

Eventually, I had to learn  to speak out, but the first thing that popped into my head would fall out of my mouth without even thinking.  What-ever I said was usually silly or wrong, because I still had not learned to engage my brain before speaking.

 It has taken me many years of following God’s wonderful ways to learn to choose a better approach in communication.  I still don’t have it down perfectly, but am making progress.  God even inspired this little verse to help me remember:

Words

Words abound within us

The servants we employ ~

As tools they help a brother,

As weapons they destroy.

In Isaiah 50:4 there is a most amazing scripture that I treasure and now pray about every day.  “The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.  He wakens me morn-ing by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.” NIV        

The best way to stay close to God and choose His way of life is to pray and study the Bible.   Meditate on scriptures, they are powerful tools in helping us to overcome.  We are admonished in  James  4:7-8,  “Submit yourselves therefore to God.   Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God and He will draw near  to you”.  NIV   It is our job to either choose life or not.  

God has given us free will to make choices.  “…I have set before you  life and death,  blessing and cursing,  therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.”  Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV

In  Joshua 24:15,  we are given another  wonderful example  of stand- ing up for the ways of God:   “…choose you this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house,  we will serve the Lord.”  NIV

We all have something that we are striving to overcome,  to choose a better way, God’s way!  It takes a desire to please God and patience diligence to overcome.  Success is build on one good choice at a time.  We can be sure that our Father will be pleased at our desire to be more like Him. 

However, when we do fail, we can either give up or go to God and trust in His forgiveness and mercy.  Even the Apostle Paul made serious mis-takes in his life and yet he says   ”…forgetting those things  which are behind  and reaching  forth unto those things which are before,  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13-14 NIV

When reaching a choice point,  we must stop long enough to consider what would please God.   It helps to offer a  quick prayer and ask God   to help us make the right choice.  Stand firm and trust God and  He will give us the strength to overcome.  May we then choose life and honor God!