Do you admire people who are so decisive — who know what they want and aren’t afraid to go for it? Would you like to be one of those people? See what the key is to being a more decisive person.

<p>Do you admire people who are so decisive — who know what they want and aren’t afraid to go for it? Would you like to be one of those people? See what the key is to being a more decisive person.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written Canada

Michael Lemon

René Lemon

Would You Like To Be More Decisive?

Did you know that if you had a simple domino, that domino is capable of knocking over another domino 1 and a half times larger than itself?

So if you started with a domino just 5 millimeters tall and 1 millimeter thick, about the size of a Tic Tac, it would take just 29 progressively larger dominoes to wipe out, get this, the Empire State Building.

And that first Tic Tac-sized domino is so small that it needs to be set up with tweezers.

The gravitational potential energy, or the energy stored by balancing that domino on its side, comes from the domino's mass and height, both of which increase with every successive domino.

In this demonstration by physics professor Stephen Morris from the University of Toronto, he uses 13 dominoes and the amplification of energy from the beginning to the end is 2 billion.

You put a little bit of energy in at the beginning, and you get 2000000000 times as much at the end.

This is an amazing object lesson to show us how much potential energy each 1 of us has in the power of choice.

You see, from the genesis of humankind, everything hinged on the freedom and power enhanced in a decision.

From the moment your eyes crack open in the morning, you have decisions to make.

Should you get out of bed, or should you sleep in for a few more minutes?

Even military leaders, they tell their troops, if you want to change the world, start by making your bed.

And the Bible adds its weight to this truth when it says, do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.

We start every day with work to do, and baby steps, tic-tac-size small beginnings, are the key to success, because there really are no small decisions.

Even a small decision like making your bed is a habit that can lead to a chain reaction of successful right decisions throughout your day and throughout your lifetime.

Are you going to make your bed in the morning or not?

Luke 16 verse 10 says, whoever is faithful in doing little things can also be trusted with much.

Bigger decisions, like being able to buy a house or get married will be affected by the series of smaller choices you've made in the past.

In the Bible, God offers you the chance, even if your faith in Him is the size of, as Jesus says, a little mustard seed, to make the ultimate decision when he says, now I am giving you the choice between life and death, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.

God definitely wants you to live an abundant, successful life, not just now, but eternally.

In today's program, we will look at how everyday decisions produce earth-shattering outcomes.

There are 3 men who have become heroes to me.

2 were Canadian athletes and 1 was born before I was and yet he is still alive today.

Well, the 2 athletes were Terry Fox and Paul Henderson.

Yeah, I think they were heroes to most Canadians.

But what I admire most was how they were so decisive.

They knew what they wanted and they weren't afraid to go for it.

Terry Fox and Paul Henderson both lived so goal-oriented because They both had a burning desire to do 1 thing, 1 thing for their country and for the good of all.

And they both had very strong, supportive family members who believed in them.

From an early age, I know Terry Fox wants to be an athlete.

And even when he lost his right leg to cancer that didn't stop him.

He said it even made him stronger and he wanted to help other people who were also suffering from cancer.

So he ran the Marathon of hope and he had the support of his family and friends and it became a chain reaction where he got the support of the whole country and today there are Terry Fox runs all over the world raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

And Paul Henderson, who is best known for scoring that winning goal in game 8 of the Summit Series, and I know you remember that goal, he also had a strong, supportive family.

But beyond hockey, Paul made significant, life-changing decisions, which we will let Paul himself tell you about in his own words later in the program.

So, Mark, you were saying there was 3 men who were decisive.

Well, the third man, if you haven't guessed already, was very goal-oriented because he had a burning desire to do 1 thing.

But it wasn't to play hockey or to run across Canada.

He also had a very strong, supportive Father who believed in Him.

He is the man that we know today as the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

And I first learned about Him when someone gave me this Bible, and they challenged me to read a chapter a day.

That's when Jesus became my ultimate role model, my hero, my example, my friend.

From Reading this Bible, I learned that Jesus had 1 burning desire.

The goal of his life was to bless every human being with a meaningful, abundant life, eternal life.

And Jesus also had a very strong support of Father who believed in Him.

There were 2 times during Jesus' life on earth when his Father spoke audibly the same words to him that the people could actually hear his voice.

Both times are found in the book of Matthew.

And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.

This verse is found in Matthew 3 verse 17 at Jesus' baptism.

And the second time that God the Father speaks audibly to his Son, the exact same words, is found in Matthew 17, verse 5, at his transfiguration, which says Almost the same words.

Suddenly a voice came from a cloud saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

These words must be important because God repeated the same words audibly twice.

Imagine God saying those words to you personally.

You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.

Wow, that would be amazing to me because I didn't grow up with my earthly father around.

But when I started to read this Bible as a teenager, I decided that I wanted to be a child of God.

And when I chose to accept Jesus, I knew these 3 things, and every child needs to know these 3 things.

I knew, number 1, that God was my eternal heavenly Father.

Number 2, I knew that he loved me and every child needs to know that.

And number 3, I knew that he was pleased with me and that made all the difference in the world to know that God was pleased with me.

Do you know that God is pleased with you?

Look at this very encouraging quote from a book on the life of Jesus called the desire of ages.

The voice which spoke to Jesus says to every believing soul, this is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.

After teaching high school for so many years, I know that lots of young people have a hard time believing that God is pleased with them.

But it's true, God is well pleased with you.

Now, some have said, no, God can't be pleased with me.

However, when God says he's pleased with me, that does not mean he is pleased with my sin.

Mmm, God hates sin, but you are not your sin.

Yes, you see, God knows that sin is the deadliest of cancers.

So He is like an oncologist whose goal is to eradicate the cancer in order to save the patient.

So when we say that God is pleased with you, we are saying you are not your sin.

And God is pleased with you as his beloved child.

Look at this affirmation from God's Word.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God and so we are.

God loves you as his child and he hates sin because sin destroys the real you.

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Would You Like To Be More Decisive?

Transcript

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