In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, we read of God's faithfulness and the wonderful condition of that faithfulness: READ
These last words of Moses are upbeat and positive. He's saying to them that just over the next ridge, just beyond life's next corner is a whole new existence ...
a new land, a new life, a new opportunity. It would be what they chose it to be.
He sets before them those wonderful opportunities and great things. "What you need to know is not something you have to fly with angel's wings to heaven and stand in the presence of God to receive. It is not something you need to traverse some wide, theological sea that's stormy and hard to navigate in order to learn it. What you need to know to make your life rich, full, and good is as near to you as your heart. It is as near as the words of your mouth. It is as close to you as music is to a hymnbook. It's something near at hand.
The thing you have in your possession that can make your life wonderful, good, real, and full is choice. You have in your possession the ability to make choices, and you can choose a good life. You can choose wonderful, abundant life for yourself.
And you who feel like some marionette, some puppet with strings attached, you don't have to live like that. You can pull your own strings. You have in you this wonderful power to make life good."
Do You Have a Victim Mentality?
This is not a universally-accepted truth. There are many people around us who would say, "We don't get to pull our own strings. We are victims of who we are, where we are, how we were born, where we were born, and what our life is about."
There is a kind of thinking that has clouded the American mind called determinism. It's a mishmash ... a mixture of Freudian psychology and genetics.
It is saying with Freudian psychology how you were raised has much to do with what you are, and that's a half-truth. It's also mixed up with the study of genetics. We've just come into this kind of study lately where people are saying, "We can't help who we are. I don't have happy genes, so I can't be happy. I don't have a driving gene, so I can't be a driven person. I can't make my life what it needs to be because I am who I was born to be. It's somebody else's fault. The choice is not mine. It's in someone else's hands."
You've heard about or possibly seen the voluptuous cartoon character in Who Killed Roger Rabbit who said, "I'm really not a bad girl. They just drew me this way. A lot of people feel that way. Somehow, they've been drawn to be somebody other than they really would like to be.
I read something this week that's supposed to be played with a guitar.
It's entitled "Determinism Revisited."
It says:
I went to see my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed
To find out why I killed the cat and blacked my wifey's eyes.
He laid my on downy couch to see what he could find,
And this is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind.
(Interlude: Hey, libido -- bats in the belfry, jolly old Sigmund Freud.)
When I was one, my mommy locked my dolly in the trunk,
And so it follows naturally that I am always drunk.
When I was two, I saw my father kiss the maid one day,
And that's the reason I suffer from kleptomania.
(Interlude: Hey, libido -- bats in the belfry, jolly old Sigmund Freud.)
When I was three, I suffered from ambivalence toward my brothers,
And that is the reason why I poisoned all my lovers.
I'm so glad that I have learned the lesson I've been taught.
That everything I do that's wrong is someone else's fault.
In America, the motto seems to be: It's not whether you win or lose but where you place the blame. God is saying, "You don't have to listen to that."
Have you ever heard anybody talk about why they succeeded? Have you ever heard someone say, "I succeeded because I couldn't help it. It's who I am. I was born this way."
You never hear that when someone succeeds. It's always the reasons for failure.
Imagine Freddie Fourth-Grader brings home a report card, notably absent of the first two letters of the alphabet. His father is looking at the report card full of C's and D's and F's and wondering what in the world to do about this. The little boy says, "Well, Dad, what do you think? Is it heredity or environment?"
If the report card had a lot of A's on it, do you think they'd be talking about heredity and environment? Boy, they'd be talking about good study habits and how hard work pays off.
Have you ever heard a professional golfer after he won a golf tournament? He always says things like "I was striking the ball so well. I've been working hard on my short game, and now it's really paying off for me."
Gary Player, who is around 60 years old, is still winning golf tournaments. He blasted out of a deep sand trap with a bad line, and the ball landed close to the hole and stayed there. Somebody said, "Man, what a lucky shot!" Player turned to the fan in the gallery and said, "I've learned that the harder I practice, the luckier I get."
The fact is there's a lot of people who would say, "This is why I'm wrong," but they don't want to accept the same explanation for why they were right. Our Lord is saying to all of us that you are affected by the way you were brought up. You are affected by the genes you have. No one would deny that. The fact is you can overcome that. You can be what you choose to be. I think when the Word of God says you can be born again, that's what it's talking about. You can be born again with a new life. You can be born again into a brand-new family, a brand-new environment. You can become the person that God made you to be. God's Word is promising you that.
The Dangers In Choice
You do realize, however, that there are dangers in choice, and the Scripture tells us about these dangers. Moses gathered the whole nation around them before they went to possess the land, and he said, "Do you wonder what this new life is going to be like? It's going to be in relation to your choices...I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose....You can really choose which one."
How do you choose? Which do you choose? Which do you accept? You can choose blessings and curses. You can choose life or death.
There's a young man touring the country now, making speeches against smoking, who used to be a model for one of the cigarette companies. He is saying, "This nation has been lied to because so many people have been trying to get you to make the disastrous choice to smoke." Because he himself was dying with emphysema, he's a pretty good example of what he's talking about.
You can make choices that will destroy your life. You can make choices that will determine your life. The Lord is saying you can make these choices.
But supposed you say, "I understand I make choices, and I've tried to make good choices. I've tried to do well in this world. I've made my choices. All my life, I've wanted to be somebody, and now I am somebody. And it's not me."
Anybody feel that way?
You know, I think screenwriters sometimes just bare their souls and give themselves away, whether they intend to or not. There is a line in the movie Forget Paris in which the female star says, "I know I'm in there somewhere.
I can hear the echo of my screams."
How many people have made choices, tried to make good choices, tend to direct their own lives in great ways, and then said, "It's not me, and I know I'm in there somewhere because I can hear the echo of my screams"?
Tell me, is this you? Could this be the you that you want to be? You get up in the morning, and you say, "I have the power to choose. I can choose to love or hate. I choose to love. Because I've been loved, I'll be loving, and I will be loved again. I can choose to be joyous or miserable. I choose joy, and therefore, I will spread joy. I can choose to be at peace or to be eaten up with anxiety.
I choose peace, and therefore, I'll help others have peace. I can be patient or impatient this day. I choose to be patient, and therefore, I'll make life better for all around me. I can choose to be kind or unkind. I choose to be kind today and to be generous with other people. Today, I can be in control of my activities or I can be out of control. I choose to seize control of my life and my actions, so that others will be helped by who I am, too."
Do you realize what I've done? I've just told you the fruits of the Spirit of God. In Galatians 5, God's Word names these very characteristics and says these are the fruits of being filled with the Spirit of God. You make it the first business of your life to honor Jesus Christ, and you will have these fruits.
You make it the first business of your life to honor Jesus Christ, and you will have the ability every day of your life to get up and choose, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. You don't have to let others pull your strings. It all comes in Jesus Christ.
Choose The Lord As Your Life
There is one line in this Scripture that is the whole secret. It's in verse 20.
If you get nothing else, get this: "For the Lord is your life..." If you have the Lord, you have life.
You make it the first business of your life to invite Jesus Christ into your heart and to honor Him, then you have life. That kind of life makes you the kind of person who is free to make these choices and has the power to make the choices to make life good. But you need to know Him.
Back in 1849, during the Gold Rush in California, there was a man named James Marshall who discovered gold in Sutter's Creek. He discovered pounds and pounds of pure gold, and this started the '49'ers Gold Rush. You probably would imagine that James Marshall lived a life of opulence from that day forward. That he was knee-deep in wealth, a billionaire, and died a rich man.
But the truth is, James Marshall never had anything. He died a poor man. He died a miner, digging around for gold for someone else. Do you know why? He never staked his claim. He couldn't keep all that gold he found because he never claimed title to it.
I wonder how many people will one day stand before Jesus Christ when it's too late and learn what they could have had if they had just staked their claim.
If they had just said, "Lord, I need You. I am a sinner. I choose to let You come into my heart and be my Lord and Master. I choose to receive life. I know that the Lord is my life, and I accept Him."
Tell me, have you staked your claim? Have you staked your claim to all the riches that are yours because of Christ? You'll miss it if you don't. It's a choice. The Bible lays it all out in terms of choice. It's not going to accidentally happen. It won't happen because your daddy or your mother or your grandparents or your brother or your sister were Christians. It won't be handed to you by someone else. It's your choice to make.
Remember how the constant, consistent, reverberating words of Jesus and the apostles was: "Repent and believe"? Each one of those is a command to choice. If you make that choice, you live. If you neglect that choice, you die. That's God's Word. That's His truth to you and me. Don't fail to stake your claim.
The late, great, and funny Grady Nutt had a nutty sermon entitled, "The Gospel According to Pinocchio." Pinocchio was a marionette who had all these strings attached to him, and he wanted to badly to be a little boy. He wanted to be real. He wanted to go where he wanted to go and do what he wanted to do. He wanted to not be pulled around by someone else and have other strings attached to him. He hated those strings that were attached to him and took life's control away from him.
Pinocchio began to learn that as he loved, as he honored, as he obeyed, as he made choices that made life better, the strings began to fall and be in his control. When Pinocchio got the strings in his control, he was very careful about who he let have those strings.
Our Lord was careful about who got the strings that pulled His life. His mother and brothers came one day and said, "Jesus, You're embarrassing us. All this religious talk of Yours is really bothering the religious people. You need to stop it and come home with us. Let us put You away." But Jesus wouldn't let them have His strings.
The devil came one day to Christ, and he said, "Look, I know You want to be Messiah to this world. I know this world. You may know heaven, but I know this world. I know what these people are like. I know what moves them. I know what their hot button is. You follow me, and I'll make You ruler of this world.
I know what this world will follow." Jesus wouldn't let the devil have His strings.
In Gethsemane one day, He went there and prayed hard and long. The result of that prayer was that He did what He had done all of His life. He handed the strings to His Father.
The Word of God in Philippians 2 says this about that decision: "...he humbled himself and became obedient to death --- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
He gave all His strings to the Father, and that's the choice that made Him victorious. I want to challenge you today. Give all the strings to the Father.
As you do that, you're going to choose life. As you come to God through Jesus Christ, you're going to find life. Give all your strings to Him for the Lord is your life.
