Using Alpha to Make Pro Life Choices

UV 2951/10000 Using Alpha to Make Choices
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 thou and thy seed may live:
Deuteronomy 30 v9

God has set before us a clear choice – between life and earth, between blessing and cursing. He also urges us to choose life and blessing instead of death and cursing so that both we and our children will live in peace and well being, in fellowship with the Creator, Almighty God, the Spirit of God and Redeemer Jesus. So that our spirits, minds and bodies are completed or perfected or made whole in Him. At the practical level, when we choose to be angry instead of being calm, we are choosing death over life, when we choose hatred over love, we are choosing death and cursing. When we choose bad habits over good habits, we are choosing death over life. When we choose bad words over good ones, we are choosing death and cursing over life and blessing. When we choose to be morose and depressed, we are choosing death and cursing over life and blessing. When we choose strife instead of peace, we are choosing death and cursing. When we choose to be impatient with each other, we are choosing death and cursing over life and blessing. When we choose to be rude instead of being kind, we are choosing death and cursing over life and blessing. When we choose to be unfaithful to God and others in our lives, we are choosing death over life, cursing in preference to blessing. When we choose to be proud and arrogant or conceited or egoistic, we are choosing death and cursing. When we choose to believe in untruths and falsehoods, we are choosing death and cursing. Choosing to believe in the existence of good and evil, of God and satan, of heaven and hell, of angels and demons, of blessings and curses is our choice. When we choose to lie, cheat or commit crimes or live an adulterous life, we are choosing death and cursing. Often, a series of wrong choices sets us up for a life of cursing and a propensity of making the wrong choices again and again in different aspects of our lives.

Though the choice of life over death is an obvious one, we unwittingly choose death over life. We choose wealth over wisdom on account of our inner lusts and covetous fallen nature. Jesus restores to us the freedom to make the right choice- the choice of life over death and blessing over cursing. We are now free to choose His precepts in preference to the treasures of gold and silver and precious stones or money of this world. We are free to choose to spend time and devote attention to learning at His feet instead of busying with the affairs of our house or of our business or profession like Mary who Jesus endorsed as One who chose the better part that no man can take away. Every choice we make every moment of our lives has an opportunity cost in terms of blessings obtained or forfeited. The way we set our hearts and minds in a default mode to choose the most preferred blessing- spiritual over intellectual, emotional, social, material, monetary benefits is also our choice. Whether we prefer the eternal to the long term and the long term to the short term blessings is also our choice. Whether we choose to share our blessings with others in need of it either by speaking about it or by giving of it is also our choice.

Our choices should be pro-Life or pro-Jesus, pro-The Way, The Truth and the Life. He is both the Temple and the template. When we choose to love ourselves more than we love others or love God, we are setting ourselves up for misery and failure and hamartia or shortcoming and cursing. God never curses anyone We curse ourselves with the choices we make constantly in our lives. We need the grace, the wisdom of Jesus and the counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit to consistently make the right choices. Of course, the culture of society, the company of other people, peer pressure often pressurises or compels us to move toward wrong choices. The Word has the power to remove us from the world of wrong choices. God does not compel us to make any choices but He has witnesses in heaven and earth to watch the choices we make in the course of our lives. How we respond to the problems, handicaps, challenges, difficulties, shortages, threats we face in our lives is also our choice. Choosing to obtain the help of Almighty invisible God in facing and surmounting these mountains is also our choice. Hence, the choices we need to make are not a complex array but usually a binary choice, one out of two options. Of course, there are grey options or choices but the major issues of life can be clearly decided in terms of a simple “yes” or “no” response. The Word of God or the Alpha is sufficient to guide us in all the choices we make daily.