Everyone makes tough decisions these days, whether relational, financial, social, or business related. Each decision we make has a far-reaching impact on our lives and can change the course of our destiny for better or worse. But how exactly do we make wise decisions? Certainly, we need to consider the factual context and logical ramifications of the path we choose, but how can we be sure of our choice? By utilizing God’s word and the peaceful witness of our heart, we can be confident of making the right choices. Join Carl now as he shares deep insight on how you can access God’s wisdom and be certain He has your back. Join him for Part 2 next week…
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
Friend, we’re talking today about making wise decisions. Now, not only do our decisions impact our immediate future, but potentially the long-term future of our families, either positively or negatively. You know, the older we get, the more important it is to make wise decisions, because we have less time left to make corrections if we make bad decisions. So what decisions are you considering right now, and do you need help in those? Let me share with you some of my key tips or findings that I’ve discovered after studying God’s Word regarding decision-making.
How do you know that God is leading you in a decision? That’s a key question. How can we mitigate bad decisions in our everyday lives? And should we be led more from the outside or the inside? That’s kind of a strange point to make, but I will expound upon it later. And what does our peace level have to do with decision-making? And should we make decisions quickly, friend? Now, some of these answers may be obvious to you and others not, but decision-making is absolutely pivotal in the Kingdom of God, friend, because we’re seeking the perfect will of God, spoken of in Romans 12 too, and if not the good will, and if not the acceptable will of God, but we certainly don’t want to disobey God, and that’s very, very important.
I’m just going to share some quotes with you real briefly about decisions that I’ve found. Someone once said, Don’t base your decisions on the advice of those who don’t have to deal with the results. Ah, that is very important, think about it. People are full of advice, but they’re not the ones living with the decision made, so be very careful who you seek advice from. But I would say, especially in key decisions, seek advice from believers, not the unbelievers, friend, because they don’t have the Spirit of God in them to confirm the very thing God is telling you. Antony Robbins once said, It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped, and there is truth in that statement.
If you don’t make a decision, friend, you’ve just made a decision. Think about that. If you don’t make a decision, you’ve made one of apathy, you’ve made one by default, because if we don’t make a decision, then we’ve made this decision not to act, and friend, there’s an urgency to act sometimes in the Spirit and the natural realm. And Mark Twain, I found this one, he’s got so many profound quotes. Mark Twain said, To succeed in life, you need two things, ignorance and confidence. And there’s some truth to that.
Some people don’t know the risks involved when making a decision. They don’t know the full outcome, and they go ahead anyway, only later to find out there are far more repercussions than first envisioned. But confidence is key. But where do we get our confidence from? And that’s another aspect of what I’m going to talk about. But the first thing we have to ask is, does God speak to us today? Because whenever we’re making a decision, we need to seek His will. Check out this Psalm.
Psalm 95, verse 7 through 8, “For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.” Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart, as in the provocation and in the day of temptation in the wilderness. Friend, God always has a today word for you, and it’s up to you to seek it out. You’re not going to hear that word for today if you don’t seek out His word. But did you notice in that verse, right after it said, today if you will hear His voice, the next thing it says is, harden not your heart. If you’re struggling to hear the voice of God, the still small voice I’m talking about, not the audible voice of God, which is rare, but the still small voice, you might not hear it because your heart is hard. You may have a hardened heart, friend, and when it becomes callous, it can be harder to hear from the Lord. So we need to be cognizant of our heart condition to be tender and contrite towards the Lord. Then in Psalm 46 verse 10, it says, “Be still and know that I am God.”
I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world. But friend, at the beginning of the verse, it says, be still. We have to lie down, be still, listen, be quiet, calm the soul down. It can take me 15 to 20 minutes to get all the stuff racing in my mind out from the day and really get still before the Lord in a position where we’re conducive to hearing the still small voice. And this has to be practiced. The key is to cultivate a daily regimen of reading God’s word. One chapter a day is what I recommend. I challenge people to just do one chapter a day. You know, people have these Bible reading plans and it’s two chapters of the old, two of the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs. And you know, that’s great if you can do it. But many people just struggle because they can’t seem to do, you know, all these chapters and then they just quit.
They go, I just don’t want to do it at all. And that’s friend, that’s a trick of the enemy to get you out of reading God’s word. So friend, I challenge you to read one chapter a day. And there’s several reading plans out there on the internet for free in PDF format. And heck, we might even post one on our website. But they’re readily available to seek God out and hear his still small voice whilst reading the word of God. When you commit to hearing God’s voice and seeking him in the day to day, you’ll be better able to hear him when it’s time to make a big decision. You know, some people only seek God when things go south. OK, when things go belly up. All right. However, you want to use your colloquial term there. But when things just mess up, then, oh, I’ve got to seek God.
This is serious. Well, God wants to speak to you all the time, friend. He wants to speak to you every day, not just in the big things, not in the times of stress and the times of travail. OK, so let that be a word for you, friend. So if we have trouble hearing from God, it could be our conscience and or our heart, rather, that has no longer tender before the Lord. OK, and there’s actually a scripture that backs this up in First Timothy, chapter four, verses one through three, “Now, the spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.” And then he goes on to list there the Apostle Paul, several things that these people would recommend, which is forbidding to marry and other things. And I realize, of course, friend, I’m not talking to you. You’re not believing in doctrines of demons, OK, and forbidding to marry and all that stuff. That doesn’t apply to you.
But what I’m trying to say is this scripture clearly reveals that the conscience can be seared. The conscience can be seared over time like a hot iron. And I’ve said it in previous broadcasts. I had an uncle back there in Wales. He was a farmer, a bit of a rough and ready chap, a gruff guy, but a lovable guy. And he would go in there and he would pour his hot, boiling water into his tea. And it would steep there for about 30 seconds, maybe 45 seconds. And he would just drink the entire tea down in one gulp, OK? And that’s because his esophagus was actually seared. The lining of his throat could take hotter and hotter water over time until he lost feeling.
He lost feeling in that area and he could just drink it all down. And friend, have you lost feeling towards God? Is your conscience no longer tender? Have you lost the still small voice? Have you lost the clear ability to hear from God? Friend, I would suggest to you get right with God. You need to have a one-on-one Jesus time. Let some stuff go. Get restored. Be contrite. Be tender. Be sensitive to the leading of God. And allow God to heal your heart, OK? Hardness of heart is an issue. Jesus spoke about it after he was resurrected in Mark 16:14, it says, “Later he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen.” Jesus has done all this for the disciples.
He’s gone to the cross. He’s resurrected. He’s gone to hell. He’s laid the blood on the mercy seat. And the disciples weren’t even believing that he was raised from the dead, even when people were giving an actual eyewitness account. And Jesus rebuked them for this. But he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart. Friend, hardness of heart can lead to unbelief, because it’s choosing not to believe, remember. Doubt is simply not knowing, but unbelief is knowing and choosing not to believe.
And that’s probably, friend, what we’re most guilty of as Christians, OK? Because the unbeliever doubts because he doesn’t know God. But if we know God and don’t spend time in his word, we could be subject to unbelief ourselves, which is choosing not to believe in the miraculous side of God. Amen? So are there any bad decisions in the Bible, friend? There are several, in fact. I can think of Sarai when she coaxed Abram to have a child with Hagar to produce Ishmael in Genesis 16. This was the child of the flesh which persecuted the child of the Spirit, Isaac, from then until now. You know, that one act of disobedience spawned a seed war where we have Arab against Jew, we have Islam against Judaism, and all these conflicts down the centuries because of one act of disobedience, friend.
And again, there can be major repercussions for stepping outside of God’s will. You know, the key takeaway in this instance is that Sarai reasoned within herself that God couldn’t accomplish the promise in his timing and took matters into her own hands. Are you guilty of this, friend? Are you guilty of taking matters into your own hands? And friend, you know Ishmael, he’s high maintenance, right? You gotta change his diaper, you gotta feed him, you gotta provide a tent for him. You know, how many have had an Ishmael out there? Both of my hands are up right now. I’ve had several Ishmael’s. And you know what, friend? I made decisions based on my mind and my rationale.
And the truth is, my spirit man on the inside was telling me, don’t do it. You know, I lost peace on the inside. My inner witness was saying, don’t. And I ignored it, okay? I’m an engineer by trade. And to be honest with you, we tend to rationalize things. And we don’t always listen to our heart. And that’s a personal weakness that I’ve had to overcome in my life, friend. Am I speaking to anybody out there, okay? Then there was the time Israel was tricked by the Gibeonites into making a false treaty with them. They were enemies posing as destitute vagabonds. The Gibeonites took advantage of Israel’s compassion and kindness. But they did not inquire of the Lord. Joshua 9 verse 14. They should have sought the Lord on how to treat these strangers. But friend, these strangers were posing as friends and allies. But no, they were enemies. And they were next on the list to be wiped out from the land of Canaan. So here’s the key takeaway. Do people take advantage of you because of your kindness? Are you willing to do everything for everybody? But you’ve not sought the Lord concerning his will.
You know, people who are very kind can be taken advantage of. And I believe I’m speaking to somebody out there. You know, sometimes kindness is something that, you know, we certainly should be kind and compassionate. And Jesus was led by the Spirit to be compassionate. But there comes a point where God wants people to do things for themselves, okay? It’s not always about, you know, you doing everything for somebody else. Otherwise, you’re restricting their growth. You’re restricting their ability to grow in themselves and in the Lord, friend. So I ask you today, are you doing everything for everybody? But you haven’t sought the Lord concerning this thing that you’re doing. I urge you to do so. And then in our third example, we have King Jehoshaphat and King Ahab, who both went into battle to recover Ramoth Gilead. But the prophet Micaiah warned them not to. They both disobeyed.
And unfortunately, Ahab was killed by an errant arrow which pierced his armor. Friend, things look good for the kings. They’re like, hey man, we can take these guys. We can take back Ramoth Gilead, no sweat. Friend, this had a little bit of a Forrest Gump anointing. Stupid is as stupid does. The prophet warned them flat out blatantly, don’t go into Ramoth Gilead and don’t fight these people. They’re like, look man, we can take these guys. We don’t need God.
This is a cinch. And that, friend, is direct disobedience. That is stupid personified. We don’t need to be doing stuff when we’ve been warned by the inner witness and the inner voice of the Holy Spirit and had confirmation, okay? Need I say more? But the circumstances, friend, they looked inviting. The circumstances looked like it was all lined up for victory. And they went ahead with the sin of presumption.
They presumed things would work out, friend. Be very careful. Even when things look good, seek the Lord before you make the decision. And that’s a very salient point. We need to seek God even in the good times. Because sometimes we can be snared by the enemy when things look obviously good. And this is actually a trap as well. Oh, friend, we need to be careful and stick tight to the Lord. Amen. Friend, we’re going to pick up with part two of this message. I’ve got lots to share. And I’m excited to help you in making wise decisions.
https://carljosephministries.com/podcast/does-god-work-in-mysterious-ways/
https://www.ltw.org/read/my-devotional/2020/02/eight-characteristics-of-godly-wisdom
Title: Making Wise Decisions: Part 1
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