Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
—Proverbs 4:25 NIV
Are you enjoying the life and blessings of God in your everyday life? Or have you made a series of choices resulting in disappointment, pain, or feeling that everything you do requires great effort and produces little reward? Don't spend your time and energy mourning all the bad decisions you have made; just start making good ones. There is hope for you!
The way to overcome the results of a series of bad choices is through a series of right choices. The only way to walk out of trouble is to do the opposite of whatever you did to get into trouble—one choice at a time.
Maybe the circumstances of your life right now are the direct result of a series of bad choices you have made. You may be in debt because you have made a lot of bad choices with money. You may be lonely because of a series of bad choices in relationships or in the way you treat people. You may be sick because of a series of unhealthy choices: eating junk food, not getting enough rest, or abusing your body through working too much and not having enough balance in your life.
You cannot make a series of bad choices that result in significant problems and then make one good choice and expect all the results of all those bad choices to go away. You did not get into deep trouble through one bad choice; you got into trouble through a series of bad choices. If you really want your life to change for the better, you will need to make one good choice after another, over a period of time, just as consistently as you made the negative choices that produced negative results.
No matter what kind of trouble or difficulty you find yourself in, you can still have a blessed life. You cannot do anything about what is behind you, but you can do a great deal about what lies ahead of you. God is a redeemer, and He will always give you another chance.
Trust in Him: If you have a situation that is too big for you to solve, then you are material for a miracle. Invite God to get involved, trust in and follow His directions, make one good choice after another, and you will see amazing results.
The Blessing of Obedience
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
Malachi 3:8-10
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to excuse disobedience? We catch it in our children more than we do in ourselves, but that isn’t always because we are less guilty. We also have a tendency to disobey the Lord. The people in Malachi’s day were no different. They excused their disobedience with feigned ignorance. They knew God’s law required them to bring a tithe, but when they were told they were robbing God, they acted shocked. “Wherein have we robbed thee?”
Whether it is in how we manage our finances, or any other area of life, we are given the choice—we can either do what God instructs, or we can decide to go our own way. Invariably going our own way leads to sad consequences. Though many view God’s laws as meant to deprive us of things that are enjoyable, they are actually intended to protect us from things that are damaging.
The indisputable fact, declared in the Bible and proven for thousands of years, is that when we do what God says we will be blessed. Though those blessings take many forms, and sometimes are not the ones that people expect, they are certain. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25).
Yet too often rather than yielding to God’s instructions, we think that we can still receive His blessings while going our own way. That never works. As one old preacher said, “Don’t sow wild oats and then pray for crop failure.” If we wish to enjoy the bountiful blessings of God on our lives, our families, and our work, we simply must do as He commands.
Malachi 3:8-10
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to excuse disobedience? We catch it in our children more than we do in ourselves, but that isn’t always because we are less guilty. We also have a tendency to disobey the Lord. The people in Malachi’s day were no different. They excused their disobedience with feigned ignorance. They knew God’s law required them to bring a tithe, but when they were told they were robbing God, they acted shocked. “Wherein have we robbed thee?”
Whether it is in how we manage our finances, or any other area of life, we are given the choice—we can either do what God instructs, or we can decide to go our own way. Invariably going our own way leads to sad consequences. Though many view God’s laws as meant to deprive us of things that are enjoyable, they are actually intended to protect us from things that are damaging.
The indisputable fact, declared in the Bible and proven for thousands of years, is that when we do what God says we will be blessed. Though those blessings take many forms, and sometimes are not the ones that people expect, they are certain. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25).
Yet too often rather than yielding to God’s instructions, we think that we can still receive His blessings while going our own way. That never works. As one old preacher said, “Don’t sow wild oats and then pray for crop failure.” If we wish to enjoy the bountiful blessings of God on our lives, our families, and our work, we simply must do as He commands.
Today’s Growth Principle:
There is no substitute for obedience to what God has said if we want to enjoy His blessings.
One Good Choice After Another
by Joyce Meyer - posted February 01, 2017Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
—Proverbs 4:25 NIV
Are you enjoying the life and blessings of God in your everyday life? Or have you made a series of choices resulting in disappointment, pain, or feeling that everything you do requires great effort and produces little reward? Don't spend your time and energy mourning all the bad decisions you have made; just start making good ones. There is hope for you!
The way to overcome the results of a series of bad choices is through a series of right choices. The only way to walk out of trouble is to do the opposite of whatever you did to get into trouble—one choice at a time.
Maybe the circumstances of your life right now are the direct result of a series of bad choices you have made. You may be in debt because you have made a lot of bad choices with money. You may be lonely because of a series of bad choices in relationships or in the way you treat people. You may be sick because of a series of unhealthy choices: eating junk food, not getting enough rest, or abusing your body through working too much and not having enough balance in your life.
You cannot make a series of bad choices that result in significant problems and then make one good choice and expect all the results of all those bad choices to go away. You did not get into deep trouble through one bad choice; you got into trouble through a series of bad choices. If you really want your life to change for the better, you will need to make one good choice after another, over a period of time, just as consistently as you made the negative choices that produced negative results.
No matter what kind of trouble or difficulty you find yourself in, you can still have a blessed life. You cannot do anything about what is behind you, but you can do a great deal about what lies ahead of you. God is a redeemer, and He will always give you another chance.
Trust in Him: If you have a situation that is too big for you to solve, then you are material for a miracle. Invite God to get involved, trust in and follow His directions, make one good choice after another, and you will see amazing results.
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