In the last message we continued with God’s Positioning System and if you have not read that part you can read it under the Sermon CategoryAfter we discover what God made us to be we move on to
Step 2 – Accept Responsibility for my Own Life

This can be a difficult thing. God has given the freedom of choice and all these choices determine our future. Remember Moses chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the pleasures of sin Heb 11:25

If you want to make an impact in your life it is your choice. Not your parents, spouse, boss or anyone else, the choice is yours. You choose to eat the foods you eat, you choose to study the Bible or not, you choose how to react when someone cuts us off while traveling to work. I get emails all the time saying “I am not as close to God as I’d like to be.” Well that is just hogwash. You choose to be close to God. You choose to pray and meditate. You choose to read and study the Bible. That choice is yours. You can’t live off of other people’s spiritual commitment. It can’t be “My wife/husband goes to church for the both of us”

YOU CAN’T BLAME OTHERS for the direction of your life! Yet, the society that we live in tells us the opposite. We are told “It’s not your fault.” Yes I know that we can’t control all the circumstances in our life but we can choose how we respond. Pastor Lee calls this Respondability. Our ability to respond to everything. Now I know some of us had some hard times and some of us had nasty upbringings, and I truly am sympathetic to those situations. But as real and tragic as these things are, they will not ruin your life. The only person who can do that is you.

Step 3 – Establish a Value System for Your Life.
If you are going to make your life count, you need to settle the issue of what is really important. Moses thought it was better to suffer for the sake of the Messiah than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the great reward that God would give him. – Hebrews 11:25
Are you going to accept God’s value system? We all need to sit down and decide what we are living for. Most people never do this and that is why they are failures at life. Are you ready to change? You can and God will be by your side the whole time!

Now let’s look at that verse a little closer. Hebrews 11:25. Look at the original Greek word apolausis which means “Full Enjoyment” Lets look at that for a moment. Basically this says that Moses gave up the full enjoyment of sin. Yes sin is fun. But depending on what version you are reading, it might read “…passing pleasures of sin” or “…for a season”. The Greek word is próskairon which means for an occasion or temporary. The point here is yes sin is fun but only for a short time. Just think if you have ever had a hangover, or spending on a credit card. It might be fun for a short time but in the long run sin is not fun.

Think about this when you put together your value system.

The last step is to NEVER take your eyes off of your Goal.

Think about this, there are thousands of self help gurus making tons of money on how to succeed. People are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars when all along the secret of success is found in the Bible. Let’s look at Hebrews 11:27 “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” NAS Moses focused on God and when you do anything important in your life, you need to focus on the goal. If any of you are NASCAR fans, there is an expression that goes something like this, “Don’t look at the wall” You see in racing if you look at the wall you CRASH into it. Race car drivers focus on where they are going and we need to do that as well. A good example of this if you are trying to lose weight. Don’t say that you are “On a Diet”, “Trying to lose some weight” See yourself fit, thin and in great shape. Put pictures up all over the place of you when you were in shape or cut some out of a magazine. Remember it was 80 years before God’s people were ready to go to the Promised Land. They had many trials along the way. Just like you will have trials as you reach your goal.

Remember your decision shapes your destiny. Go for it now!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Bob

PS Do you have a calling to serve God? Please CLICK HERE

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 10:32 am and is filed under Weekly Message, Sermons, Bible Study. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.