WHEN WE BUTTER OUR BREAD ON BOTH SIDES...

Walking with God is not about do's and don'ts. If we are doing things from a legalistic perspective, we are missing the point all together! However, the Godly counterpart of legalism is His indwelling Spirit. When Holy Spirit lives in your heart, He stirs within you the desire to live right. And the more you allow Him to indwell you completely, the more you experience Him in a way that is so fulfilling that it becomes inconceivable to live without Him ever again!

There is a catch though, and the catch is that God is not satisfied with just a part of you, He wants ALL of you. Unfortunately, most of us do not want to give Him everything, we just want to give Him enough so we can have a claim on His goodness whenever we need it, because in our world everything is about "us". Humanity has reached that point where everything is a right and nothing is a privilege. We spend our lives fighting for the right to make the wrong choices, instead of desiring wisdom to make our choices right...

Living in a country where faith is largely disregarded, I often hear statements such as "how could God allow this and that" and "if there were a God why doesn't He do this and that". Somehow it is always God's fault, rarely the devil's and, frankly, seldom our own.

BUT, if you want to walk with God, or if you want Him to help you out of your (self-induced) mess, you are going to have to stop throwing rocks at God for not answering your prayers and, instead, examine which points YOU may be missing...?

The very first point to consider is the fact that all of our choices have consequences.

You see, you have a very powerful, built-in capacity: the capacity to choose. This capacity is an amazing gift, but it comes with a responsibility to choose which side we are on... We simply can't think that we can have our bread buttered on both sides...!

Everything that you do, watch, listen to, touch, say and think about is based on a choice YOU make. These aren't forced upon you - you CHOOSE it. If you do not submit this capacity to choose to God, the consequences of your choices will be bad (for you) and will remain bad as long as you do not change your ways..!

I am going to present to you a few choices that many of us make on a daily basis that affect our moods, emotions, health, finances, marriages and general well-being. I want to invite you to read them and examine your life. I promise you that making a change in one of these areas will bring about a spiritual shift that will have powerful consequences in your life. Been there, done that, trust me!

Our thoughts:

Choosing to allow negative thoughts and imaginations (such as imagining a conflict situation) instead of making every thought obedient to Christ - 2 Corinthinas 10:5

This is at the very core of many health issues, such as depression, auto-immune disease, arthritis, etc.

Our eyes:

Choosing to watch movies containing illicit sex and violence and other things that we know God disapproves of, instead of making a covenant with our eyes, as Job did ( (Job 31:1). If you watch something willfully, you enter into agreement with it and give the associated spirit consent to enter into you. Watching sex (porn or simply a sexual scene in a movie) opens a door to lust. Watching violence opens a door to fear.

Our ears

Choosing to listen to people using God's Name in vain, to reports of violence, to songs that sing immorality or even to preachers who sooth us with what we want to hear instead of listening to sound, and sometimes challenging, instruction. (2 Timothy 4:3-4) If you willfully listen to something that opposes God's Word, you enter into agreement with it and give the associated spirit consent to enter into you.

Our body

Choosing to give our body to things that God forbid: entertaining lust in our minds, performing immoral acts, using drugs or alcohol in an abusive way, accepting bribes, etc... instead of being inhabited by God's Spirit (literally) 1 Cor 6:19. We literally are God's Temple. When we sin in our bodies we are desecrating His temple...!

Our mouths

Choosing to gossip, to slander, to speak evil over ourselves or others, to lie, or to say anything that goes against the Word of God. On the one hand I think we do not really believe Matthew 12:36-37 where Jesus said that we will be held accountable for every Word, and on the other hand we do not really believe that words are seeds... (spoken and written!!!)

Now consider this beautiful promise for all those who give themselves entirely to walk with God:

Isaiah 33:15-16

“Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?”15  He who walks righteously and speaks with integrity, Who rejects gain from fraud and from oppression, Who shakes his hand free from the taking of bribes, Who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed And shuts his eyes to avoid looking upon evil; 16  He will dwell on the heights, His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks, His bread will be given him; His water will be permanent.