Choose Life (deuteronomy 30:19) by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Many of us are going to find greater meaning to our lives as a result of this teaching. Many will find direction for their lives and destinies, and reasons why they may have been stagnated in life. What follows is meant to challenge, to remind, and to shake, and to give a reason to face life with determination, so that at the end of life it will be said that you lived well and lived a meaningful life.

Joshua 24:13-15 — I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you built not, and you dwell in them; of the vineyards and olive yards which you planted not, do you eat. Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Deuteronomy 30:19 — I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.

This is a call to put our lives in order — Psalm 119:133, order my steps in your word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. One of the great blessings received from two profound mentors was the awareness of the power of choices and decisions: that decisions truly decide destiny.

Decisions Decide Destiny

Decisions decide destiny. Time does not decide destiny. Location does not necessarily decide destiny. Age and gender do not necessarily decide destiny. Ultimately, decisions decide an individual's destiny. Your decisions, more than your conditions, will decide the quality of your life. It does not matter what is currently happening in your life; your decisions, more than your conditions, will determine the quality of your life eventually. History is full of people who had beautiful conditions but poor decisions, and the decisions turned those conditions into negative consequences. The prodigal son had plenty, a responsible father, and a loving family, yet his singular decision to part ways with his family landed him in a destiny used to warn others. Lot had the opportunity, connected to Abraham, to live a life of meaning and purpose, and his decision to separate from Abraham landed him in Sodom.

Every decision is connected to consequences. A consequence is a corresponding outcome, a resultant effect of a cause. We do not choose consequences; consequences are already connected by default to the decisions we make. Poverty is a consequence, failure is a consequence, even certain sicknesses beyond medical conditions can be a consequence, and a life of pain, depression, and defeat is a consequence. Decisions are so powerful that God himself says, Deuteronomy 30:19, "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life."

What It Means to Choose

• To choose means to be aware of the other options available. You are not able to choose until you understand that there is more than one option or outcome. Most believers cannot make quality choices because they are not even aware of what the other options are; they are gravitated by default into failure, whether by ancestry or by environmental conditioning. If you bring a buffet before someone, they can choose; if you bring only a plate of rice, the word is "eat," not "choose," because there is nothing else there. The devil has blinded the minds of even believers into thinking there is no other way to live beyond the way they have known. There is a way out of poverty, a way out of spiritual laxity, a way out of curses and yokes, a way out of a life of defeat and mediocrity. There were two trees in the Garden of Eden — the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — the first representation of God's determination to make man choose.

  At least four options are on the table:

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  • A life of grace and glory, dignity and honor.
  • A life of mediocrity, barely surviving, getting by.
  • A life of total confusion, with no sense of direction.
  • A life of total defeat and failure by every definition.

  There is something you must do, or not do, that produces each of these outcomes.

• To choose means to conclude on a path to follow after a careful examination of the various outcomes they produce. To choose is not only to be aware of the options, but to consider each one until aware of the consequences it produces, and then to conclude, from a standpoint of knowledge, which path to follow.

Choices and decisions are pathways; they always lead somewhere. We move in destiny by making choices, not simply by moving with our feet. Even indecision is still a path, because the moment you begin making choices, you must inevitably move toward becoming better or becoming worse.

Prolonged indecision is giving circumstances permission to choose for you. A farmer does not need to tell weeds to grow; all he needs to do is refuse to farm, and something will grow. If you refuse to decide, life and circumstances become impatient with your indecision and choose for you, and it will always be to your disadvantage. It takes making decisions to rise in life, and it takes making decisions to fall or fail in life.

How Curses and Blessings Work

Curses and enchantments, and equally the blessing, work by influencing a person's decisions; both depend on the cooperation of the will. A curse does not manipulate a person who has no mind; it plants an appetite around certain decisions that produce a predictable consequence. One of the ways deliverance from curses and yokes truly happens is not only through ministration, but through a superior orientation, so that a person's choices now come from another kind of information. In the same way, the blessing works by giving an appetite toward decisions that lead somewhere good. You can always know what spirit is influencing you by the kind of decisions you are making and the outcomes that follow.

The real value of wisdom is in its ability to help you make superior, destiny-advancing decisions. Many claim to be wise, yet believers remain surrounded by foolish decisions made again and again. The moment the effects of your decisions are not leading you toward a desired end, it means you are bankrupt of wisdom, and you can know this by the outcomes of your life.

Your choices will influence the outcome of your life more than your prayer life. This is why there is much prayer in the body of Christ without corresponding destiny advancement, because many believers pray as a ritual but do not purify their decisions to make word-compliant, pro-destiny choices. If you come from a poor family, do not let a poor family come out of you. In this house, an adult is not defined by eighteen years; the moment a person can decide and is aware of the consequences of decisions, that person is an adult immediately.

Followership has two principles: follow them, and look unto Jesus. Leaders are a personification of outcomes, a demonstration of decisions, so that you can see the destination in the life of another before choosing to walk that path. Respect not only crowns, but scars, because both crowns and scars are teachers. Success is not what you seek; success is what you attract by who you are becoming. Luke 2:52, Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man — even the Fountain of wisdom subjected himself to the law of growth. Ministry is not only preaching; preaching accounts for only a portion of ministry, and there are many unseen aspects, including administrative excellence and the management of both human and material resources, that must also be learned. Without growth there is no fruitfulness; fruitfulness is a direct product of growth.

Seven Destiny-Defining Decisions

1. The Decision to Know the Lord and Serve Him

   Matthew 22:37

   This is the first and greatest decision every person must make: to know the Lord and to serve him all the days of one's life, loving the Lord with all the heart.

2. The Decision to Contend for a Superior Belief System

   Proverbs 23:7

   As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. This is the decision to come out of old belief systems, limiting belief systems, satanic and mediocre belief systems.

3. The Decision to Live a Life of Purpose and Meaning

   Hebrews 10:7

   "Lo, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of me, to do thy will, O God." It is wasteful to merely exist. Beauty without purpose is useless; intelligence without purpose is useless. It is purpose that gives value to anything you have.

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4. The Decision to Contend for Health and Longevity

   This is not just a decision to be physically fit, but to live strong and to live long. There is no value in longevity without strength, and no value in strength without longevity. It takes good eating, exercise, and a correct state of mental health to live healthy, and it takes speaking the word of God and making prophetic declarations over your destiny to live long.

5. The Decision to Be Financially and Economically Empowered

   John 10:10

   It is a heritage in Christ to not be in want. Lack and want do not glorify God; God can be glorified in the midst of lack, but lack is not God's design. It is expensive to preach the gospel with integrity, to educate children, to care for widows and orphans, and to be a genuine blessing; poverty cannot fund those obligations. Try becoming rich with understanding, and see how much better life becomes.

6. The Decision to Build Strategic Destiny Relationships

   Marriage was not designed to solve every emotional need; there are dimensions of emotional and relational comfort that come only from a relationship with Jesus, others from godly strategic relationships, others from a spouse, and others from children — each was allocated its own space. Loneliness has killed many people who had no one to confide in. There are still honest people, still godly people, still friends that stick closer than a brother.

7. The Decision to Be a Blessing

   Genesis 12:3

   To be a blessing is different from simply fulfilling an assignment; a person can excel in career and still not be a blessing. Popularity does not mean impact. Anna the prophetess was not popular but was impactful; Jesus was both popular and impactful. Choose impact a thousand times over fame and popularity. Living a wasted life, centered only on self, on money, on reputation, ends in the discovery that such a life did not do well. The greatest way to live is to spend it glorifying Jesus and being a blessing to someone.

An Invitation to Choose Jesus

Choose life means choose spirituality, choose loving and serving Jesus passionately beyond church traditions. Choose life means choose to upgrade your thinking to a superior mentality. Choose life means choose to live a life of purpose and meaning, not merely wandering the corridors of life and destiny. Choose life means choose vitality, whatever it takes to walk in health and soundness. Choose life means choose financial and economic empowerment, that the Lord truly is your Shepherd. Choose life means choose strategic relationships; you cannot remain a believer in the midst of unbelievers and say company does not matter, for a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Finally, choose life means choose to be a blessing, that one day the nations will thank God that you came.

The greatest way to choose life is not to make money, and not merely to be educated, and not even simply to serve in church; it is to have a functional relationship with Jesus.