Did you know:

  • The average adults is subjected to 600-625 advertisements every day
  • If you live in a city, that number can reach upwards of 5000 ads
  • Every day, you make thousands of decisions about your life
There are literally thousands of voices yelling at you every second of every day. Each one of them is demanding that you buy a certain product, wear your hair a certain way, get this phone, buy this value meal. More importantly, advertisers are insisting that you think, behave, and believe just like they want you to.
Marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Everyone from President Obama to Lady Gaga to the clerk in the supermarket is trying to get you to think, feel, believe, and act a certain way.
We are bombarded with so many choices that sometimes it begins to feel like we don’t actually have a choice! 
Lady Gaga says I was born this way so I should just do what comes naturally. But my parents want me to think and act the way they do. And then my teachers are challenging my parents beliefs. But then my friends get together and listen to Lady Gaga!
How can we ever make the decision of whom to listen to?
When Moses was giving his farewell speech to the nation of Israel, he lays it all out for them.

19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.(Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

The time had come. They had to choose. You cannot follow God while sitting on the fence. You cannot enter the promised land with one foot east of the Jordan River.

Some time later, Joshua, the one who took over after Moses, presents a similar ultimatum before Israel.

15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15)

Even the decision NOT to choose is a choice in itself. Choosing not to choose one side or the other is the same as choosing not to follow God.

 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)

I heard it said before that there cannot be a “God and.” There is nothing that can be served along with God. Otherwise, God is not served at all. You can either choose to love God or choose not to love God.

“Do or do not. There is no ‘try.'”

Either God is everything or God is nothing. He is either Lord of your whole life or Lord of none of it.

Life and death are yours to choose. Heaven and hell is your decision. Blessings and curses are dished out as you choose them to be.

So choose. Make a decision. Either follow God or stop pretending.

God loves you so much that he lets YOU choose.