Making the right decisions is very important because one day we will all have to give an account of the decisions we made.  Remember the following four things when you are called upon to make a major decision:

1. Do the right thing.
2. Do the right thing at the right time.
3. Do the right thing at the right time with the right motives.
4. The right decision will always lead to a great reward.

The decisions we make do matter and they affect our family and our friends.  A lot of people make a decision that will get them momentary satisfaction.  They are more interested in what they can get out of life right now and they forget there is an eternity out there much longer than the here and now.  But making the right choices takes a heavenly-minded person.  There are three important people in the Bible who made decisions that not only affected them, but had a major impact on many others.

Joseph’s story is a good example of someone who consistently made the right decisions and ultimately he received his reward.  As a young boy, he had dreams that put him in a position where everyone would one day bow down to him – including his family.  He was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. His father was told that he was killed by a wild animal.  He was framed by Pharaoh’s wife because he refused to sleep with her and was thrown into prison.  He interpreted the dream of a prisoner who was released and restored to his position, but he forgot about Joseph.  Joseph interprets one of Pharaoh’s dreams and he was promoted from the pit to the palace over night.  In the end Joseph became the leader of all Egypt second only to the Pharaoh himself.  When given the opportunity to take revenge or forgive his brothers, he chose forgiveness and his family was restored.  God never left Joseph and Joseph never left God.  He remained faithful and godly through it all and God honored him.

Job was a very wealthy man who one day lost everything but made a decision to trust God no matter what.  His decision to trust God even after his wife told him to curse God and die, proved to be the right decision and allowed God to give him double for his trouble!  Job had no idea that God would restore him, but holding on to his faith and not giving up on God positioned him for his blessing.

Jesus made a decision to obey his heavenly Father even to the point of death.  In the Garden of Gethsemane he could have made a decision not to give his life as a ransom for us but his love for God propelled him to make the decision he made. This decision changed my life; it changed your life and the life of every Believer.

Let’s all follow the example that Joshua gave us.  He made a decision as to who he would choose to follow in life.  He said “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” If you believe that God is God, be a faithful follower of Christ and be consistent in your decisions so no one will ever doubt who you serve.

I’m sure that you have a plan for your life but God also has a plan for every one of us.  God’s plan is superior to our plan and that is why we must pray for direction to follow it,  have the patience to wait on it, and most of all we need knowledge to know when it comes.  To know God’s plan, we must have an intimate relationship with Him to experience the communication that is necessary to hear from God.  We all have friends and we all have acquaintances, but the kind of relationship I’m talking about goes so much deeper than having an occasional talk with God.  The people who love God so much to the point that they want what God wants, aren’t satisfied with just knowing about God, they want to truly know God and they will pursue God not just on the surface but they will take their relationship  deep because that is where God is!

To receive all that God has for you, I want to admonish you to go deeper in God with faith.  Going deep will require much faith and the more faith you have, the deeper you will go.  Just as a pool has shallow water in the beginning, then the further out you go the deeper the water, the same holds true with your personal relationship with God.  The deeper you go, the more you will know about God and His will for you.  Imagine a pool of water symbolizing your relationship with God.  Your depth in God could be just ankle deep.  Christians who are at this depth are baby Christians who are not yet ready to swim because they are not yet spiritually mature. Walking in ankle deep water requires little effort. you can easily choose to get in or out, and you are one of the people the Bible says are easily blown to and fro by all manners of doctrine.  At this depth, you are just a little bit committed and your eyes are still looking back and not towards the future. You need to see more before you believe more.

If you go deeper, you will then be knee deep.  Christians who is at this stage understand the power of prayer and of the Holy Spirit. Knee deep believers are a little more committed than the ankle deep believers, but it is still fairly easy for them to change their minds and get out of the water.  If your relationship goes a little deeper, you are in waist deep.  Believers who are wait deep in their relationship with God read the Word, they understand the Word and they are assured of their personal salvation.  They understand the grace of God; they are faithful tithers because they do not want to rob God.  They are also out sharing the good news of the gospel with the lost.  At this level, the believer is growing in the Lord and is solid.  If you are brave enough to go deeper in God from this level, you become submerged and have reached the highest level in God.  This is the final stage, the water is supporting you, you are not using your own power to wade through the water, and you are walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  Your relationship is all about being totally submitted to  God’s will and the flow of His spirit.

As Christians, we must want to go deep with God so that we are able to swim; so that the power and presence of God pushes us into doing God’s will and not our own.  Our Christian walk must grow larger and deeper; we need to depend upon God for everything.  God does have a plan for your life.  Pray for the knowledge to recognize God’s will for your life.  Pray for the patience to wait on God’s timing and to have the faith to follow His direction.  Don’t settle for knowing about God or having just an ankle deep relationship with Him.  Pursue God with your whole heart and you will find Him and experience the deep things of God that few ever realize.

We all have dreams – situations that we’re believing for, or circumstances that we want to see turned around.  Too often when we pray we tell God how to do it, when to do it, and who to use to do it.  But there is one problem with that – God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are so far above our thoughts.  God doesn’t always do things the logical way, God uses unorthodox methods.  If you have any preconceived ideas of how you’re going to be promoted, get healed or experience restoration, lay it aside – it won’t happen the way you think!  You have to stay open, let God out of your box; you may only see one way that it could happen.  God already knows how to promote you; He knows how to get you the finances you need to send your child to college, or buy that new car. But if it doesn’t happen your way, if you’re not careful you’ll get discouraged and start thinking that it’s never going to happen.  Often a person gets passsed over for a promotion on their job only to find out that they ended up with a better one.  What you don’t realize is God can close one door on purpose because He has something much better for you.

God can use whoever He wants to use, save whoever He wants to save, bring good out of whomever He wants to.  God used Rahab the prostitute to save the people of Israel.  He used a donkey to speak to Balaam.  He used Pharoah’s daughter to take care of baby Moses.  A lot of times, God IS answering our prayers; it’s just not the way that we expected.  God may not use the people you were expecting and it may not happen on your timetable.  But this is what faith is all about – faith leaves the details up to God because He knows better than you do what’s best for you and when you are ready to receive it.  Take another look; maybe God has answered your prayers, just not the way you thought.

One reason God does it His way and not our way is so that He will get all the glory.  God is an out of the box God. His plan for your life will not always be logical, or reasonable, or what you had planned.  But if you stay open to God, your miracle will be much bigger, better and more rewarding, than you ever imagined.  Sometimes God has to push us to our next level.  He wants to not only bring you out your problem, but He will do it in such a way that you will have to give Him the glory because you could in no way have achieved victory on your own.  God has 1000 ways to bless you; when they show up, are you going to recognize His blessing and walk it out?  Trust God to heal you, promote you, restore you and bless you His way!

Believers should always be growing; always moving forward because if we are not moving forward, we are either standing still, or falling behind.  If we always do what we have always done, then we will always be what we have always been.  We don’t want to ever become stuck at where we are; we should look towards the future with hope and not be afraid to take the next step toward fulfilling God’s plan for our lives, and God’s plan is all about moving forward no matter what the past looked like.  Your past might have been wonderful or it might not have been the best, but your future blessings cannot be obtained as they are ahead of you and not behind you.

There is only one way to move in the kingdom of God and that is forward.  When we move forward the Lord will open the doors that He wants you to go through and He will close the doors that no longer serve a purpose for you.  The apostle Paul understood this principle when he said in Philippians 3:13 “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”  It’s important to leave the past behind you so that you can embrace all that God has for your future.  If you believe that all things work together for your good, you know that the past has helped make you the person you are today.  You may not be all that God wants you to be at this point in time, but you are not the same person you use to be.  You have experienced much and your faith has grown to a deeper level.  Press on until you reach what lies ahead. There can never be a time or place in our lives that we stop moving forward!We are not finished yet! The future is full of all kinds of possibilities.