The Power of a Decision
"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life."
Deuteronomy 30:19 (NKJV)
Love is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. We use it for everything: we love pizza, we love summer, we love our football team, and we love our children, all with the same word. No wonder we're confused about what it actually means when the Bible commands us to love.
Here is the crucial insight: love, in the biblical sense, is not primarily a feeling. It is a choice.
God built us as moral agents, creatures capable of choosing. Unlike rocks, trees, or animals, we can decide. We can choose to forgive or to hold a grudge. We can choose to serve or to expect to be served. We can choose to speak kindly or to wound with our words. Every day, in dozens of small moments, we are exercising the most powerful gift God gave us: the power to choose.
Moses lays it out with magnificent simplicity: I have set before you life and death; therefore, choose life. The implication is clear: the choice of life is not automatic. It requires a decision, a turning of the will in a particular direction.
This is what love looks like in practice. When someone has wronged you, and every feeling in you wants revenge, you choose to forgive. That is not weakness. That is one of the most courageous acts a human being can perform. When you are tired and someone in your family needs you, you choose to show up. Not because you feel like it, but because love is a decision.
The astonishing thing about this kind of chosen love is that feelings often follow. Many people wait to feel loving before they act lovingly. But the experience of many faithful believers tells us it often works the other way around: when you choose to act in love, the feeling eventually catches up.
Ask the Holy Spirit today to help you choose love, especially in the places where it is hardest. That is where it means the most.
Prayer: Lord, help me to choose love today, not because it's easy or because I feel like it, but because You chose to love me when it cost You everything. Fill me with Your Spirit so that my choices reflect Your heart. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Pastor Ras
All Nations Community Church
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