WHY YOU HAVE A CHOICE
Your God-given right to choose your own destiny is a powerful tool in your arsenal to claim your personal authority
The following is an excerpt from Instead of Shame…
“In battlefields throughout history, often there is an unclaimed or undisputed area on the battlefield called “no man’s land.” This strip of land is neutral ground—an unoccupied, unclaimed, and often disputed area between armies. In the spiritual realm, however, there is no neutral ground. There is no area called “no man’s land.” Wherever and whatever you build, it will be on territory firmly within either the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of darkness. There’s no third option.
Satan wants you to help him build his kingdom. It’s possible to do that even without realizing it. This is where your ability to choose carries substantial weight.
The Lord doesn’t want an army of robots in humanity. That’s why He created mankind as free moral agents who can think and make decisions for themselves. People have the responsibility to make moral judgments and be held accountable for their actions. This is the phenomenal power of choice. The gift of personal jurisdiction creates an autonomy of independent thought, which is profound in its significance. Even when one cannot control their circumstances, they can choose how they will respond.
When the Lord created the first humans, He placed them on the Earth in a sinless world. There was no disease, no poverty, no relationship issues. It was a perfect setup. But even then, Adam and Eve were tempted to reach outside God’s grace to attain selfish desires. Within their garden home was a tree, the fruit of which they were not to eat. If they did, God said they would die. The tree was left unguarded, available to the first couple as a test of their will and obedience.
We know the story, how Satan deceived the woman and enticed her to eat the fruit. She ate, and she gave the fruit to Adam, and he ate too. Through that event, known as the fall of man, sin entered the world and the culture of hell began to invade and expand. The fight for territory between the kingdoms began.
The decisions that led to the fall had huge implications on the lives of the first humans and those of future generations. Some might wonder why the Lord would give such potential power to His human children, knowing what they could do with it. But we serve a bold and fearless God, and this is God’s way of doing things. The Lord granted Adam and Eve the power of choice, even when He knew they would choose wrongly.
Our God doesn’t make anyone serve Him. There are no slaves or forced labor in His Kingdom. To function effectively in the Kingdom of God, one must be a willing participant. This is the heart of the Father. The Lord desires for His children to voluntarily align themselves with the Kingdom of Heaven—not by force, but through personal choice and often by sacrifice.
The following verse is a narrative of how the Lord once presented a significant choice to the Israelites. They had just escaped the oppression of Egypt only to find themselves homeless in a new and strange wilderness. God had an exciting future for these people, but He needed them to get in covenant with Him to fulfill His purposes. He would not force them to comply, but He appealed to their good sense and gave them the option to decline.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live . . . —Deuteronomy 30:19
For the Israelites, it was life or death, blessing or curse. There was no middle road, no alternate path. The God of Heaven was calling the descendants of Abraham into a covenant with Him in which He would be their God and they would be His people. It would be a covenant for all time, one which would influence the souls of all people everywhere. The stakes were high. But still, they had to choose. God would not choose for them.
Thankfully, they chose life! They willingly entered into a covenant with Heaven, which stands to this day. Through that arrangement came the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and a new covenant which offers salvation to all. The select favor as God’s chosen people, which once belonged only to the Hebrew people, is now available to “whosoever will.”
God granted the gift of choice to all humanity, knowing that people might use it for all the wrong reasons. They might use it to build the wrong kingdom—and, unfortunately, they often do. But through the power of the anointing, men and women of God can oppose Satan’s efforts, frustrate the kingdom of darkness, and weaken the power of the enemy. Specifically, believers can bring the Kingdom of God to the Earth
That is why you are a personal threat to the devil.
Satan is afraid of believers because he knows they have access to the Kingdom of God. His fight is not really with humans; it’s with God. But he hates God’s children because they have the supernatural ability to bring God’s Kingdom to his domain. The devil cannot operate in the Kingdom of God. He is powerless there, because the Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of light, and he thrives only in the darkness. I believe that’s one reason why he works so hard to hinder believers in their walk with Christ.
Satan’s first attack on a child of God is about their identity. The devil is well aware that if believers ever find out who they are, he’s in trouble. Because when a child of God realizes their true worth and gets a grip on their real spiritual identity—that they are one with Christ, full of power and authority—then they realize they have a choice. They don’t have to settle for less than full-blown joy and victory, because they know they have access to all the power of Heaven, that the Kingdom of God is within them. They’ll begin to operate in remarkable spiritual strength, building the Kingdom of God, manifesting the kind of love that changes things.
The devil wants to stop people before they ever get started. He manages to create an identity crisis early in childhood. His full intention is to keep God’s children confused about who they are throughout their lifetime so they never figure it out—and that’s all God’s children, both the saved and the unsaved. The tactics of the kingdom of darkness are aimed at all humans, not just Christians. Satan wants to prevent believers from being effective for the Kingdom of God, and he wants to prevent unbelievers from becoming believers
But knowledge is power, and now you know. You don’t have to accept a life stunted by shame and hopelessness because of enemy threats. You don’t have to tolerate a marginal existence choked by fear, condemned by accusation, trapped in a wilderness of isolation. You have a say in what you allow in your life, even in your destiny to some degree. You can choose life—abundant life—because you have the power of choice.”
Debbie Wallace
Author, The Armor Series and The Freedom Class
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