The Sum of All Your Choices

The following message is presented by John Elliott, a minister in the United Church of God. Life, some 70 years or so of an opportunity to live, to know, to experience, to have opportunities to develop relationships here on earth and in heaven. You and I are given what an artist might see as a blank canvas. Now, I've not been an artist, but I see these blank canvases once in a while for sale. And it's a simple thing, really. It's a white canvas wrapped around some boards, put it on an easel, and there's a lot of potential there. In the right hands, that can be a landscape, it can be a portrait, it can be something inspirational, it can be something hubris, it can have words on it that are enriching, it can be something crazy and dark that takes the mind down and it's chaotic. It can be so many different things, but when it's new and it's fresh, it's full of potential, incredible potential. Sometimes those canvases can be sold for millions of dollars. Sometimes they just go in the trash can. But each human has the opportunity of painting, as it were, on their own personal canvas. As adults, we have filled in our canvas, not totally, there's still room on it, but we've filled in a lot of it as we go through life. And when we look at it, we might say, well, what's it like? Is it something that's desirable? Is it something that's appreciated? Is it something that looks great? Sometimes you look at people's canvases, as it were, and you say, that person's not too artistic. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes we look at people and say, wow, their canvas is just amazing. How you can paint your life like that, as it were. The question I can ask myself and share with you is, how have I painted my canvas? And even more important than that question, how will I paint on it yet today and tomorrow? You know, a beautiful thing about this calling, this opportunity, this life, is the canvas is never done. It's never complete. It's never finished. It can always be improved, or it can be worsened, as it were. It's still potential. It's always potential.

Some people's canvases, for some reason, look really good. Let's take an example in Acts 6, verse 3. Acts 6, verse 3. Here, following the day of Pentecost, where the church had come together and everybody was sharing and had things in common, the widows were having some certain pressures and needs. They needed it fulfilled. In Acts 6, verse 3, Peter says, Now notice what he wants them to go find. Go find some very good canvases, some very good paintings. Go out there and find, notice, seven men of good reputation. Good reputation is something that has taken time. It's taken life. It's taken choices. It's included values. It's included testing. It's included a lot of things. To where a reputation was good to others. This is a canvas that others respect, as it were. It says, full of the Holy Spirit. An individual, then, who has turned and is tapping God, tapping God for his mind, being led by that Holy Spirit, and being filled with not a physical, carnal, human, selfish mind, but one that is full of love and joy and peace. He wants this type of mindset to be conveyed to the needs of the widows. Going on. And full of wisdom. Wisdom is the byproduct of first having knowledge and then understanding, which comes by actually doing God's law, living God's way, really putting it to work and developing it. Then we come to wisdom. That wisdom that's from above. And then he goes on, whom we may appoint over this business. You see, life, anyone's life, isn't just a roll of the dice. It's not some chance. It's not something where the stars align and you have a disdain, and everything is just set. You're predestined, and so you can't help it. You just end up there, and you're lucky. That person's lucky. Turns out, each person is a product of the choices that he or she makes on a regular basis. So we have responsibility for the kind of life we live, the type of person we are. Individual responsibility.

People tend to look at components in their life as something that are excusable, like down on my luck, or lucky, or I didn't have this good or that good, I need a break, etc., etc. Or they'll take credit and say, I'm just a great person, and I'm so smart and capable, this is why I'm doing so well. I've lived it my way, as it were.

There's an author whose name is not known who said, Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, make a different choice. These are, in a sense, simple facts, aren't they? They're simple statements. But they're bedrock, as it were, to good and bad, blessings and cursings. The Bible's full of it. Actually, we'll find that society understands these principles, at least logically. The focal point of the message today is, you and I can have a great life if you do the things that make life great. If. And the Bible's also full of that. The if. From beginning to end. That great potential that comes with the canvas relies on if you and I make the right choices. The title of the sermon today is, The Sum of All Your Choices. The sum of all your choices. The first point of seven that I'd like to give with you today is that you and I are the sum of all of our choices. That's me. That's you. All the choices we make come together, and that's us, individually. Patrick Ness made a statement. We are the choices we make. We are the choices we make.

Let's talk about choice and consequence. In a very simple way that we can all understand, everyone here can understand. How do we all get in this room today? By the choices we've made. Why aren't others in this room today? By the choices they've made. We are here as a consequence of choices we have made. Now we might not be here in the future, or we may be here in the future, depending again on choices that we make. You see that there is that variable. There are those who used to be here that aren't here. There are those who will be here that aren't here.

But you see, they all involve a series of choices, and the consequence is, at least for us, here we are today, worshiping God. In point one, you and I, in our lives, are the sum of the choices that we make. We chose who influences us, who we listen to, who our friends are, who we hang around. The internet, entertainment, we choose these things.

And thus, we have some of the thoughts that we do, some of the values. We choose whether or not to have a career and follow a career path and get education for that career, or not to. We choose to live where we live, right now. Nobody came and kidnapped you and stuck you in a house and said, you've got to pay the rent.

You choose each of your employers, one after another. We don't have the work police that show up and say, you have to have our care. We chose them. The wages, the benefits. Every time, I'd say, well, it was all I could find. Right there, we admit, I'm the one that found it. You chose every product you own. Do you realize that?

When I walk out into my shop and I pick up a tool, and it's a lousy tool, a cheap thing, who bought it? Or you pick up a good tool, and, oh, this one, this is a good one. You bought it. Every appliance, every car, look in your closet and say, I don't like the clothes in there. Who bought them? See, we make all these choices. We chose every bite we put in our mouth after we got out of diapers.

Can't say much about before that. And everything liquid that we swallowed, you know, nobody's force-feeding us here. Now, what we've talked about here are physical things. So let's look at some spiritual components of this. Ten commandments. If we want to look at choice and consequence, all you have to do is look at our booklet, Beyond Today. Ten commandments. Every commandment. And every aspect, every intent of each of those commandments is blessing or cursing, making life work. See, it is make the right choices and make your life work. Make the wrong choices. Life won't work. What does the Bible teach about tithing? Well, if you want the windows of heaven to open on you, Malachi, right?

Chapter 3. Give God His tithes. Choice and consequences. How do you have good finances? You have to manage them. You have to make good choices. You have to be wise. What happens after death? Good question. Right? Choice and consequence. What happens after my death? That's the question. Not just what happens after death in general. What happens after your death? The answer is up to you, as we'll see in a minute. Are we living in the time of the end? What about the time of the end? Final little chapter in this booklet is, Preparing for the End Time.

Somebody was telling me this morning, Oh, I've got to know more about the end time, more about the end time. And I said, I'd rather be prepared for the end time. Preparing for the end time. Because, as Jesus said, no man knows when his coming is going to be. Be ready, he said, for you don't know the hour when that's going to happen. So there's all these choices and consequences we have. The second point is, choices have automatic consequences. They are built-in consequences. We like to think that choices have variable consequences. Like, if you make a choice that's not too good, well, you don't know what the result's going to be.

You might be able to soften it a bit, depending on circumstances, or will it away, or whatever. No. Choices have consequences. They're automatic. They're built-in. I'd like to quote from a book called, The Eight Attributes of Great Achievers by Cameron Taylor. It's interesting that great achievers in this society, in the world, and here's an author that's just talking in a secular way, great achievers. Chapter one is titled, Choice and Consequence. You know, even on the human level, it is well recognized that choice and consequence play in. He says this, every time we make a choice, we are either obeying or disobeying a law of success.

Remember, we used to have a book, The Seven Laws of Success. We're either obeying or disobeying a law of success. As we obey the laws of success, we move to a more successful state of happiness, peace, power, freedom, and prosperity. As we disobey the laws of success, we move to a state of sadness, weakness, bondage, and misery. Each moment we are progressing towards one of these two states. With each choice comes a consequence, and no amount of rationalizing or complaining will alter the consequence. We need to realize that that is the way things are.

There is no altering of the consequence, either positive or negative, for the choices that you and I make. Consider an obvious, biblical choice and consequence. God said to Adam and Eve, Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die. You will be set up for eternal death.

So they knew that. They heard that. But then they got another tidbit of input, and they wanted to rationalize that there would be no consequence. The consequence was death, but they rationalized if they broke that law of success, there would be no consequence. Because the serpent said, you will not die, there won't be a consequence. Humans like to convince themselves.

We'll avoid the penalty if we make that choice. And humans play that game all the time. We probably all do. I'll avoid the penalty if I make that choice, because I'm special, I'm knowledgeable, it looks like such a great choice, the fruit looks so tempting and so good for the eyes and so great for life. There won't be a consequence. There just won't be a consequence. I'll give you an example. When the income of the church was down 20 years ago, I was placed on half salary and was expected to find work.

Well, in pastoring the Cincinnati congregation, I wanted to be available 24-7 and still have work. I founded an advertising agency. Now in advertising, what you have is clients and video, print, radio, various publications they make. And the whole idea here is to promote their product. It brings awareness. It doesn't actually bring sales.

It brings awareness to the public of this product and hopefully the public will like it. That is a background. Let's look at, now, choice and consequence through a lens. If you travel outside of North America, you'll find that cigarettes, the containers for cigarettes and the advertising for cigarettes, must contain a big warning. In fact, the warning has to be as big as the package itself or as big as the letters on the sign, roughly, advertising, that says, smoking kills.

Now, from an advertising background, I find that one really hard to put up an advert, putting your product out and saying it's going to kill you and making that a successful campaign. But it is done. It is done. If you go into international airports and the terminals where they have the duty-free shops, you will see stacks and stacks of displays of these wonderful cigarettes.

And every one of these packs is aimed at you, saying on the side, smoking kills and other horrible things. In the Dubai airport, the last time I was in Dubai, there was a wall, a big wall, in one of the corridors as you went down. And the advertising agency, I don't know who the agency was, but they had gotten some bucks for this one.

They had taken the whole basic wall and they developed this giant poster. It was all printed in beautiful colors of this cigarette brand. And on this huge wall in the middle was smoking kills. I thought, wow, these guys are making some serious money! And how effective is it? Because humans don't want to consider that there's a consequence it actually is effective. It is effective. They sell a lot of cigarettes, a lot of cigarettes, and do a lot of big business telling the consumer, smoking kills. Because the consumer is saying, not me. Not me. I remember John Wayne, when he was dying of cancer, came on television and he tried to warn the public.

He said, listen, don't smoke. I'm dying of cancer. He died of lung cancer. He said, please don't smoke. But humans don't think it's going to happen. Here's an example. Sin City. Sin City, right? Sin City. Everybody knows Sin City. It's one of the big destination holiday places. There are direct flights there from Canada and other places. Go to Sin City. And the big slogan there is, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. See? Come and sin and there'll be no penalty. It all will stay here and you'll be penalty free. In other words, there's no consequences. There's no consequences for whatever you do here because it stays hush-hush.

In Proverbs 6 and verse 27, the Bible counters this notion. It says, can a man take fire to his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can you grab some fire and some hot coals and just hug them into your clothing and not have them burn or melt? Can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be seared? So is he who goes into his neighbor's wife.

Oh, what you might say. Oh, yeah, but this one's different. If I go down to Sin City, what happens there stays there. Or if I go and do something secret, there won't be a penalty. If I do it in the dark, no one will see. Let's go to Proverbs chapter 7 and verse 8 and see how this logic works out because humans have done this from the beginning. Even Adam and Eve were hiding.

I don't want to pay a penalty, so I'll hide in the bushes. Proverbs chapter 7 and verse 8, it says, passing along the street near her corner, he took a path to her house in the twilight. Ooh, nobody's around in the evening. Nobody's seeing. In the black and dark night. Aha! This one won't have any consequences. And there a woman met him with the attire of a harlot and a crafty heart.

Down in verse 18, come and let us take our fill of love until morning inside the house. Everybody's asleep. Let us delight ourselves with love, for my husband's not at home. No one's going to know. He's gone on a long journey. In fact, he's taken a bag of money with him. It's a long journey. He'll come home on the appointed day. He's on a schedule. We're good here. Dropping down to verse 23, till an arrow struck his liver.

As a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost his life. He didn't know it would turn his life upside down. It would cost him everything. Verse 27, her house is the way to Sheol, to the grave, to the League of Fire, when a person doesn't repent, descending to the chambers of death.

It turns out what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas. What happens in the dark doesn't stay in the dark. The Bible tells us that the deeds of darkness will be exposed to the light. That if you smoke, you're going to get bad health. I don't mean to single out anything, but every choice has an automatic consequence.

Notice in Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 18. It works on the positive side as well. Proverbs 4 verse 18. But the path of the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter until the perfect day. So the path of the just is going to be like sunlight to your life that just gets better and brighter all the way to the kingdom, the perfect day, till the day of the Lord, the resurrection of the first fruits.

What a beautiful thing that is. In verse 19, the way of the wicked is like darkness, and they do not know what makes them stumble. Look around at society. Do they know what makes them stumble?

Not really. They're too busy blaming and suing and fighting and arguing and to really take responsibility. But yes, yes. You might think that the principle that we're talking about is somehow locked away in Scripture. It's hidden from the eyes of the world. Zig Ziglar, the famous author, says this, you are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice. You know, it's no. It's no. And ever since, you know, years ago, they said, just say no to drugs. In other words, you have a choice. There's one life that's going to lead one way, one life that's going to lead another way. And there's so many variations on that theme. Just say no to credit cards. Just say no to this. Just say no to that. Just say no to, you know, drinking alcohol as a teenager. There's so many choices that we make that have consequences.

If you go on the Internet and Google choice and consequence, you'd be surprised what all comes up. Once again, yes, it's very biblical, and it's very important for our spiritual life, but we also have a physical life that the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes, are written there for. God wants us to have life. Jesus wants us to have life and have it more abundantly, both now and in the future. There are scholarly articles about choice and consequence.

Life choices and consequences have so many quotes. I just looked at some headings. Fifty quotes about life choices. Thirteen top quotes about life choices and consequences. Two hundred and sixty-five quotes about choice and consequence. One hundred and twenty-two quotes about choice and consequence. There are games about choice and consequence that involve it. Some report the ten top games, the twenty-five top games, that you can get on apps or on the Internet or you can buy, involving choice and consequence. It's out there. We all know that it's out there. But a common theme is the consequences don't apply to me. I'm an exception. I'm an exception. You know, individuals in North America, more than anywhere else on Earth, are known to be an exception to the financial principle of, I'll just call it, fiduciary responsibility. We have something called a credit card. And a credit card requires no loan. It actually is a consistent loanmaker. Every time you buy something with a credit card, that very day, your company, your credit company, revises your debt and upgrades your interest, recalculating it on a compounding basis. And what makes it nice is that you can go out and say, I will buy whatever I want to buy, and there's nobody to say no to you. And so people get addicted to being able to buy whatever they want. Now, the backside is that credit card may have a 30% revolving interest that is compounding daily. The silliest thing in the world is that the same company that puts out the credit card also offers a bank loan for one tenth the cost of the credit card. The person would simply make a choice to take out a loan and make wise choices with the loan, rather than the freedom to do anything they want. They would pay one tenth the interest.

It's said that people are hooked on credit card spending. One financial website says this, you can easily pay more in interest than you paid for the purchases that you make with a credit card. So, choices and consequences. People will say this, if I could live my life over, what does that say? If I could live my life over, it means I would make different choices than I may. Let's go to point three, spiritual choices and consequences. I've shown you some of the booklets that United Church of God produces, and these are all about spiritual choices and consequences, and how they relate to our daily life as human beings. The Bible does teach this. It says in Ezekiel 18, verse 20, The soul who sin shall die. And we say, no, no, no, I won't. Just like Adam and Eve, we say, no, I won't. Jesus died for me.

It's going on. God says, The Son shall not bear the guilt of the Father, nor the Father bear the guilt of the Son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. It's not your parents. You can't blame your kids. Right and wrong, life and death, is a choice that you and I make.

Sometimes we don't make wise spiritual choices. In my 45 years of ministry, individuals have brought various things to me, especially papers, or outside information, or some curious thing. They say, look, I've read this paper, and it's really got me confused now. I'm doubting my faith. Will you read this and fix me? Will you take this pain away, this confusion away? In Isaiah 51 and verse 7, God says this, Listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people in whose heart is my law. Listen to God, not others, not what people write, not religious books and religious authors, and people who begin sentences, well, I think or I feel, or people who have messages with, I think this adds up to that, and I feel this, and I feel that, and so this is how it is. Listen to me, God says, you people in whose heart is my law. In Revelation chapter 3, Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, buy from me gold. Get it directly from him, from God, from his word, the living word, the written word, from the ministry, buy it from him. Spiritual choices have consequences. I also make a choice. When an individual comes to me and says, I've read this paper, will you read it? My answer is no. No, I will not read it. I will not read material that confuses you. I will not read material that's extra biblical in that sense, or that raises issues, or promotes theories, or begins to mess with minds.

I will read and explain God's Bible to you. I will explain the doctrines that Jesus Christ has put in the church. We can talk about those things. I'll strive to live by God's laws, and we can do that together. Those all have really good consequences.

How open are we to others' teachings, others' messages, others' writings, books, rumors, blinding darkness that is on the Internet? For some reason, people think that it's open-minded. If you're out filling your mind with other thoughts and ideas, like inviting the serpent in for a chat about fruit, I choose to be closed-minded. The result is that I'm still here. A lot of people that have been really open-minded have floated off and have other thoughts, theories, beliefs, or lack of them today. In 2 Timothy 4, verse 3, For the time will come, Paul says to Timothy, the pastor is teaching, The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers. We have a desire. I want to go a little outside. I want to step a little bit into a more exciting world, a more exciting life, something that appeals more to my basic instincts. And they will heap up for themselves teachers who will encourage those things. And they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. Dictionary.com defines the word fable as not founded on fact. They will turn to those things where people say, I think, I feel that, they are not founded on fact. They are fables. Choice and consequence, once again. Jesus and the apostles have warned us repeatedly about choosing truth, teachers, applying the laws. It leads us to point four, which is get understanding from God. Get understanding from God. Sometimes we want more knowledge, more understanding. We want our minds to be puffed up and more superior in this and that. We want to study this more and study that more. It's philosophy, because there's nothing beyond what the Bible has. And so philosophy takes it beyond. It magnifies. It goes beyond. It takes the what-ifs and the maybes. People think that they have more knowledge and more understanding when, in fact, they have strayed from what we need to do in life, the choices we need to make in life. And they're off into incidentals that are irrelevant. In Psalm 111, verse 10, notice what David says. Psalm 111, verse 10. Holy and awesome is his name. No human. No guru that we're sort of lined up behind. Holy and awesome is God's name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do his commandments. See, the doing, the choice to do, brings understanding. The deep respect of God is the beginning of wisdom. And this sets us on the path of life, abundant life.

Ephesians 4, verse 11, shows us also a source of Jesus Christ teaching. Ephesians 4, verse 11, and he himself gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints. For the work of ministry, service, for the building up of the body of Christ. Verse 14, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. So we look then for God the Father through Jesus Christ, through the Word of God, and through the agents that Christ has placed himself. For that knowledge, it's not extraneous to the Bible, but just as the apostles, it focuses on the Bible. It brings out the meaning of what is in the Word of God. That leads us to point five. Get wisdom from above. My wisdom, not your wisdom. Wisdom from above.

Proverbs chapter 1 begins the book of Proverbs. It says, The son of David, king of Israel. These aren't the wisdom of a man. For Solomon prayed and asked God for wisdom, and God gave him wisdom, and he was the wisest human at that time.

To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity. There is justice. There is judgment. There is equity. A wise man will hear and increase learning. A man of understanding will attain wise counsel. To understand a proverb and an enigma. The words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. So here's the guide, and we're warned right up front. You might not want to follow this, but if you don't, there are consequences.

If you do follow this, there are also consequences. The results? Well, we look at our canvas, and we see how we have painted. We see the life that we have essentially led up to this point, and you and I choose the consequences that we make. We choose the consequences by the choices we make. In James 1 and verse 5, it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God.

We're not looking for human wisdom. We're not looking for some logic or some expression of philosophy that goes deep. No, we're looking to God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach. So we can come to God, and he's not going to say, You're bad, bad, bad, bad. No, he's going to say, look, you can do better. You can have life. Jesus came to call sinners, and it will be given to him. So we need to choose our swords, don't we? We need to get the wisdom that's from God. In chapter 3 and verse 14, he says, if you have self-seeking in your hearts, don't boast and lie against the truth.

This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthy, sensual, demonic. So be careful about that. Just because we're, say, church members, doesn't give us the right to go to the tree of knowledge of good and evil and eat there. The sixth point is, choose to make good choices every day. Now, you can't just go up to your canvas and erase it and say, I never lived. I don't have a past.

We can't have sort of literal amnesia as far as life. We are the sum of all of our choices. But we can choose to make good choices every day going forward. It's a quote from the same book. There is a human desire to be miraculously delivered from the consequences of an action. That's interesting. Secular book. There's a human desire to be miraculously delivered from the consequences of an action.

He cites some examples. You do what it takes to get bad health, and you want a miracle pill. You do what it takes to get deep in debt, and you want miracle bankruptcy. You get in trouble with the law, you break a law, and there's going to be a penalty. You want a good lawyer. We as humans somehow think that maybe there's a miracle. If I just call the minister, if I just call on God or something, the consequence will vanish. Instead, the Bible wants us to be mature, to accept responsibility for the consequence of our actions.

To be like that man in 1 Corinthians 5, who actually is a hero. Yes, he was sinning, and he thought he was getting away with it without consequences. But what God wanted him to do was repent, and he did. He repented, and he was forgiven, and he began to paint well. And the congregation welcomed him back, and we don't know how high he went. Maybe he was like the Apostle Paul, who had a canvas he really liked, thought was artistic, but it was dark, and it had the bodies of the saints painted in it, dying.

The Apostle Paul, when he was saw, was called to a great light. And then he began to say, oh, wow, I think I'll start painting better. I'll paint a different picture. And he rose to write the most, the largest part of the New Testament, and to set us a fine example of what a repentant Christian could be. So Paul here is working with a similar individual, like himself, like you and me, who haven't always painted so well, but realizes, hey, we can make this into a real work of art with God's help.

Today is a great day to do as both books encourage. The physical book says, obey the laws of success, move to a more successful state of happiness, peace, power, freedom, and prosperity. And then the good book, as we call it, says in Ezekiel 18, verse 21, to obey God and have blessings both in this life and forever. Notice Ezekiel 18, verse 21.

I don't think the other book is a great work at all. It's just interesting that humans would make statements like that, who don't even have God's Bible. But this is a wonderful book right here, The Word of God, and notice what it says. Ezekiel 18, verse 21. Yep, what happened in Vegas actually will stay in Vegas in God's eyes anyway. And certainly in the future.

That's our choice today. Right now, on God's Sabbath day, to embrace God's way, God's word, and say, you know what? I want to start painting better. I want to start living better. I want to have better results. Well, that involves daily choices with daily consequences. In Philippians chapter 3, we find that God is fully behind this concept. The Apostle Paul here promotes it, encourages it. It's a wonderful, refreshing concept that leaves the past behind and moves forward. Philippians 3, verse 13. Paul says, Paul says, For getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.

I can't change yesterday. I can't change a single thought or deed, or any day before that. And I can't even change tomorrow, though I can look forward to it. But I can change what I'm thinking right now. I can change in a few minutes what I'll be thinking and doing then. So, if I reach forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal of the Kingdom of God, for the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind. What a beautiful, refreshing thing. We shouldn't hold anything that anyone has ever done in their life against them, but rather come out of this worldly mindset and be led by the Spirit of God to the Kingdom of God.

Point number seven. Allow God to bless you with eternal life.

I'll let that sink in for a minute. Allow God to bless you with eternal life. Permit Him to bless you with eternal life. All the time, it seems, we turn that around and say, Oh, I hope God will give me eternal life. Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope. Wait a minute. You and I have to make a choice that will permit God to give you eternal life. To allow Him to do that. Let's go to Revelation 21 and verse 8. Revelation 21 and verse 8. God is waiting for you and me to allow Him to give you eternal life or to require Him to kill you. You ever think of it that way?

Revelation 21 and verse 8. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. See, the soul that sins does die if that's our way of life, if that's our pattern, if that's our life's painting, as it were. And we require God to kill us because that's the rule He made.

Sinners die.

But verse 7. He who overcomes. Now, if we give God the opportunity, if we give Him the allowance, if we give Him the right, as it were, to give His eternal life by overcoming the devil, by developing away from Satan's mind, by winning that battle, He who overcomes by choices in God's help shall inherit all things, everything, the whole universe, all that Jesus Christ owns in the spirit realm. And I will be His God and He shall be my Son. Now, which will you allow God to do and which will you require God to do? I ask myself the question. Really? That's my responsibility. Choice and consequence. Jesus Christ fills the Gospels with, please, please be wheat, because I have to bind up the tares and burn them. Please be sheep. Please be alert, be watchful. Please be a tree that bears fruit so I don't have to chop it up and throw it in the fire.

He makes pleas to you and me because the last thing He wants to do is be required to kill us. As we wrap this up, let's go finally to Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 2. Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 2.

None of this is new or rocket science, but it's good to review, isn't it? It's really good to put this in our minds. In the next sermon, I'll talk about the testing, the trying of whether we will make right choices, because that's part of it. One thing is to desire and one thing is to do, but the other is actually to test, to be tried in the doing. And that's an important component of our spiritual life in the New Covenant. Deuteronomy chapter 28, we'll start here in verse 2 through 9. Well, let's start in verse 1. Now, it shall come to pass if you... See, there's the responsibility. Are you going to let God bless you or not?

Well, if you choose to diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments, which I have commanded you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

That was their blessing on a physical level. That will be our blessing if we do those things. In the reality in God's kingdom, we in Jesus Christ will be above all nations on the earth. And all of these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed you shall be in the city. Blessed you shall be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall your basket and your kneading bowl be. Blessed shall you be when you come in. When you come in through the city gate, you'll be blessed, honored. Blessed will you be when you go out. You'll be like one of those deacons that were first chosen, recognized for a life well led. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. Those who would deceitfully, despitefully use you, God can cause those to simply fade away. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you and in your storehouses and in all which you set your hand. He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. In verse 9, the Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself, just as he is sworn to you if, if you choose to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. So, brethren, you and I have choices, and those choices have automatic built-in consequences. Endeavor as you live your life. Endeavor to make right choices, godly choices. Every one of these will be accompanied with good consequences. Choose right, for you are the sum of all your choices.