Deuteronomy 11:26-28
See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.
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Our ongoing relationship with God is always affected by choices we make. Scripture is full of the choices we have been given, and then praise God, always being told what the right one is. The Lord desires to bless us!

When the people of God were delivered out of the bondage of Egypt and had passed through the wilderness Joshua gathered them all at Shechem and said: "And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." {Jos.24:15}

Some time later the prophet Elijah gathered the people of God together on Mount Carmel and said, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow Him, but if Ba'al, then follow him!” {1Kgs.18:21} Yes, it is always about the choices we make.

Jesus made it clear in the Sermon on the Mount that everybody, all mankind, actually does choose who they will serve. He said that you and I, nobody, can serve Him and the world (mammon) but you will serve one and hate the other, you will be devoted to one and despise the other! {Mat.6:24}

I greatly rejoice knowing that the root, the foundation of all our choices as believers are given because God has chosen us in Christ from before the foundation of the world so that we would be holy and blameless before Him. {Eph.1:4} I accepted Jesus as the Lord of my life in 1976, not because I found Him but because He found me! He was never lost—I most certainly was! I am so thankful He came to seek and to save that which was lost. {Lk.19:10}

So now, I choose to obey the Lord. My regular prayer is that I will get better at doing that each day as I look forward to that glorious day when I see Him face to face {1Cor.13:12} just as He is and become as He is. {1Jn.3:2} The great promise to those who have heard the cry of the prophet Elijah from Mount Carmel and have chosen to follow the Lord God, and who like the apostle Paul have surrendered all, take joy in what he said:

"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;” (Romans 8:29)
 
BLESSED IS THE ONE WHO PERSEVERES UNDER TRIAL