Before you read this study understand that we do not teach, we share and then ask all who read the following take it to God and verify it with Him. We believe a lot of the world is misled by the church of the world and religion vs the one true church. And to know the truth can only come from knowing, not just knowing of God, John 14:26, I John 2:27, Rev 3:19-22.
Many are called but few are chosen because many are misled by false teachers Matthew 7:13-15 so we help all who wants to know the truth how to find and know the truth of and by God and not of and by man.



Choices

Pastor J. R. Wilhite, author   Close Window

I rarely do a Bible study that is less scripture and more theory, but this is one of them.

We are going to study a few facts with some possibilities. You need to understand a few things before we start. I recomend highly that everyone should have a good, daily comunication with the Father (God). It is not as hard as you may think. He is talking to you, just waiting for the day when you start listening. Yes, it takes time to hear He has to get through all the walls you have from the world, but when He gets through all of the walls and you hear Him, you will agree it is well worth the wait. Always take all you hear and read to Him and ask Him about it, never ask man because man is fallible and God is not. Always test the spirit you are hearing.

1 John 4

  1. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
  2. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
  3. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

For some of you this is going to go over your head, and to some not even make sense, but to those it does, it will be one of those that gets you to think, and think a lot about your possibilities in life.

In this study we are looking at choices, yes, you have choices and many of them.

No, your outcome is not written in stone. God sees the big picture, and in the picture He sees all of the possible ways we can go and what would happen in each. I agree this seems impossible since we are talking about billions of people so this could mean trillions of outcomes, but remember He hears and knows us all, all 6+Billion people.

You see He gave us free will and in doing so He gave us the ability to choose what way to go. Since we have this, until we choose a way, then there are many possibilities open to us, and that means we could appear to go to the west, north, east or south, and He sees each one. This means He does know our outcome, but it is based on which path we take.

Now we are going to use me for this study.

When I was 19 I went in for my draft physical, it was 1971, and Vietnam was still going strong. Well after that I went and joined the Air Force to avoid being drafted into the Army, but if I had waited a week I would not have had to go into either. I have high arches in my feet. High enough to disqualify me for the draft, but I had already voluntarily joined the Air Force. They did not care about my arches, they did not have infantry. So here I had made a choice that could have put me in Vietnam.

While in the Air Force I met a few women, one especially I was in love with, but she thought I was just joking around when I asked her to marry me. It turned out she accepted another's proposal, and after she got married I found out if she had known I was for real she would have married me instead. That other guy would have been out in the cold instead of me. I did not push it enough so I was still single, where if I had chosen to push it with her I would have been married. If I had married her I most likely would have stayed in the Air Force or moved to her home town in Markansas. Either way I would not have come back to Houston, Texas, 3 of my children would never have been born. (At the least not as they are today.) I most likely would have stayed in my field of ground support equipment after I got out, instead of going back to the grocery business.

So, I would not have put on comic, media conventions, the Ultimate Fantasy stage show with the cast of Star Trek. I may not have ended up in the ministry, and definitely would not have created godsgifttoyou.com.

So, by choosing not to push the marriage with Peggy in the Air Force all I just mentioned has happened. I may have had 2-4 children by Peggy, and been in the Air Force for at least 20 years, and been what is called a lifer. Instead I met another girl who invited me to church; I went (for the wrong reason). While there I hear the Lord calling me, so I accept the Lord in my life. Of course if I had married Peggy this would not have happened at least not the way it did.

So I got out of the Air Force a year early because when Vietnam ended in 73 they started giving anyone who wanted an early out, out. I went back home. I went back to working in the grocery business and met some new friends who introduced me to comic stores and I eventually put on about 6 comic conventions. At the same time I was studying with the Methodists to be a Pastor.

By 1976 I met the woman who was going to be my wife for the next 6-7 years, and who has two of my children. One ended up being a neighbors and not mine, but I loved him just as much anyway. She divorced me in '84 after I had a bad wreck in '83 and spent 3 years in and out of the hospital. Then I met my present (and last) wife, Barbara.


Barbara and I married in '86, and we have my one and only daughter in late '87. While at the same time I was running a chain of comic and game stores.

Oh yes about the Methodist - I left that in '80 due to the politics that were involved. The politics in the Methodist almost caused me to lose my faith. For the next 9 years I prayed, but that is about all.

By '89 I am back in the ministry and am in charge of Jewish evangelism for the Missouri Synod of the Lutherans in Texas. In '93 my business closes after starting a franchise and software for inventory control, both failed as did Ultimate Fantasy and the stores. If any part had not failed, my life would have be very different. If UF had made it, Doris may never had divorced me and we probably would have been into drugs and other sins even worse. Of course if the stores had made it, I would have been one of those attending church on Christmas and Easter, C and ER's as we call them, but still on the wrong path.

Now did God cause me to fail? No, He would have helped me to succeed, but I had no idea how or if I should ask Him. I failed, because I had no faith in what I was doing and I think I wanted to fail so I would not get caught up in the world.

Well you should be starting to see my point. At any point in my life I could have turned left instead of right and that would of changed everything. The older we get, the less we are confronted with these life changing ways. So all you have to do is make it to the end, and hopefully with the right choices for you and all you come in contact with.

Have you ever thought about just how many people in your life you do come in contact with and how you can affect each one and how they will turn out?

Let's look at choices we make on a daily basis that affect us all.

To start, when you get up you make a choice to acknowledge God or not, also to start in a good or bad mood. Yes, that's right you make the choice on your mood. It is up to you to allow your surroundings to affect you good or bad. The same is for how you slept and if you woke and stepped in some pet mess, or on a doggy bone or child's toy. You can make your mood good by just resisting the devil's temptation to get mad and realize you are in control. So after you get up and allow the surroundings to cause your day to start bad and go bad, this will then affect all you come in contact with and ripple outwards to as many as hundreds that day.

How can it be so many? Well you stop at the coffee shop and take out some of your anger on those waiting on you and then they in turn pass it along to all they see throughout the day. Then when you get to work you pass it on to those you work with and they in turn pass it on to those they come in contact with. By lunch if you have not gotten control of the problem it has blossomed out to a point no matter how long or short a person is around you they will be affected. In the restaurant you get even madder for the long wait, and then you feel the service was poor, so by this time all who waited with you in line have felt a part of your anger and so have all who have so far waited on you. By afternoon you are steaming and find a poor innocent person who works for you and you let go both barrels, even fire the person. So now they leave angry and out of work,

but since you were able to let it out you feel better and your day improves, and by the time you get home you have a nice evening. But how many others that you have come in contact with will have a nice evening? Maybe one of these snap worse than you and beats their wife or kids, or even worse loses it totally and shoots someone.

It does not matter to you because you have no idea and you even justify it by thinking if they are going to work in the public they should be used to this. No they shouldn't and no one deserves your anger or lack of control affecting their lives.

Ok, maybe some of the above is extreme, but not all. Some of it I am sure even hits home with some of you.

So what can I do to make my day better?

Are starting to get the idea? Here is one you may run into every once in a while. The person in front of you on the road is doing 45 in a 55-mph road and you are in a rush. You know they are doing it on purpose and they may be, it may be that Satan knows you are in a rush and knows he can use this against you, so he tells the guy in front to slow down. Maybe a crazy kid cuts you off doing 70 in a 55 and you wish there was a cop around to give him a ticket. Well that crazy kid may be just a young father on the way to the hospital with his wife or sick child. Or maybe not.

The point is it should not matter. We should not allow this or the other guy going too slow to affect us in any way. Don't you see how it is your choice? You most likely have had a day or two where these did not bother you and no matter what any one did it could not get under your skin, but that is not the norm. Since you have had these you know you can do it again, so make a choice today and make this one of those days. So what if you have a bad day? You think it really does not affect anyone else? Think again, unless you are on an island alone, you will affect others.

So, as an ambassador of God, why not show the love instead? You do have the choice, and God is watching to see which you will choose. Agreed, He knows all of the different outcomes you can have, but you can make it the best choice for all by making it one of love to all. Remember the two comandments Jesus said were the two that sumed up all of the 10 and that we are to live by.

LOVE GOD. LOVE EACH OTHER.

My prayer for you is:

3 John 1
2. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth

Remember to show faith when you pray, then praise and give thanks.

God Bless You as you hear His words and follow His leading.




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