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Open Door SDA Church

Dwayne Lemon

Choosing Between Blessings & Curses

I want to invite us to turn our Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 30.

We're talking about choosing between blessings and curses.

Why did such a title arrive as our subject of study today?

Because of what the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 30.

So once you're there, just please let me know by simply saying amen.

Deuteronomy 30 in verse 19, we'll look at 19 and 20.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 30, and we're considering verse 19, I call heaven and earth, and I'm reading from a King James version.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death blessings and cursing Therefore what does God want us to choose?

He says choose life that both thou and thy seed may live.

The reality, we pause right here, the reality is this.

Every day you wake up and every day I wake up, if there's 1 thing we all have in common, It doesn't matter if we are from different cultures, different genders, different age groups.

If there's 1 thing we all have in common, given to us every single day, is the opportunity to make choices.

And with every choice, there's either a blessing or a curse.

And the Bible is very clear that God says, I present before you life and death.

I present before you blessings and cursings, but then God says, but I want you to choose life.

And the reason he wants us to choose life is not only that we might live, but also that our seed will live, our children.

And when you think about choosing life, Is that something we do physically or mentally?

When you choose life, is that something you do physically or do you first do it mentally?

You don't act out, You can act out a choice, but the choice is made in the mind.

And so choosing life is how everything starts in the mind first, and then from that is followed through with the actions.

I remember I had a friend who was diagnosed with cancer.

Now, often when you're diagnosed with cancer, especially cancer, even though there's a myriad of types of cancers, some certainly more deadly than others, but often when we think of the word cancer, we can't help but to think of the word death.

It almost seems like they just go hand in hand.

When you think cancer, you think dying and death.

And the reality is, is because it's already the number 2 killer in the world, right?

So that's why we automatically think death.

But 1 of the best ways to beat cancer, 1 of the best ways to beat heart disease, 1 of the best ways to beat cancer, 1 of the best ways to beat heart disease, 1 of the best ways to beat whatever the disease may be is to remember what God just said, choose life, and that starts in your mind.

If you and I have stress responses and reactions that causes us to go into deep depression, anxiety, panic attacks, we can exacerbate a condition that's already happening in our body.

And so a lot of times in life, we have to remember, choose life, choose living, choose to believe the good things, choose to believe the better outcomes.

Because as we all know, cancer can be a death sentence, but it most certainly is not always a death sentence.

I had an email just not long ago, a sister, she had lung cancer.

Very deadly, especially if you're stage 4, and she was stage 4.

Most people were already preparing for her funeral.

But there's an organization of which I am both a teacher, an instructor, also a board member.

It's called Meet Ministry, located in Huntingdon, Tennessee.

I'm 1 of the instructors there for when they have missionaries come in for missionary training.

I'm also a board member, and I'm a just very dear friend and son, if you will, to those who run that organization.

And they have gotten people who came there literally with blindness and they actually eventually see.

People who were diagnosed with AIDS and don't have AIDS anymore.

I mean, miracles, I tell people, always takes place at Meat Ministry.

And there was this sister who came there to Meat Ministry stage 4 lung cancer, and she went through the program.

There are physicians on ground, but they don't use medication as the means of helping the people.

They use simple, what's called natural remedies.

And here it is that they treated that sister with lung cancer.

It was in March, and then a year goes by, and in September, and I got a chance to minister to this sister a little bit.

And a year and a half later, a year and a few months later, how wonderful it was when I got that email.

And she said, Brother Lemon, they've done their scans.

And there is absolutely no trace of my cancer.

And let me tell you, family, that new life that God gave to her started in her mind.

God wants life and death is always in front of us.

Blessings and cursings will come as a result of our choices and God admonishes us choose life.

Now look at verse 20 and let's find out what God really meant when he said choose life because yes we should choose life in every understanding of the word but there's a special understanding of the word life that God wants us to get as we look at verse 20.

The Bible says in verse 20 of Deuteronomy 30, we're in Deuteronomy the 30th chapter, and we're now looking at the 20th verse, the Bible says, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him.

It says, for he is your life and the length of your days that thou mayst dwell in the land which the Lord swear unto thy fathers to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob to give them so when God was encouraging us choose life he was really encouraging us choose him choose him choose me that's what God is saying in other words listen carefully family because we have to take this old truth and we have to apply it to our present day.

What God is trying to teach to every single 1 of us is a very simple lesson.

Every single day, you and I have choices.

The choices that we are called to make are the choices that produce life rather than death.

And The easier way to know which choice is the better or the worst is God says remember I am life So choose my ways every day That's God's counsel to every single 1 of us now When we choose God The Bible says we get blessings So that means when we reject God, what do we get?

Though cursing is an option, God says choose life.

Now, I want you to watch this, because knowing that I stand and you stand in the process of blessings and curses, let's think about this.

If we look at the word blessing it's dealing with a gift So God says life and death blessing and curses and again our study today is choose choosing blessings or curses God wants us to choose life, which is to choose the blessing.

Something that was born of the heart of God, that his desire is to give it to you and to give it to me.

There's a precious gift in every blessing.

The blessing of life every day, the fact that I'm still breathing, that's a gift.

It's a gift of life, that's what we call it, right?

God breathed into the nostril of man and gave him that breath, that gift of life.

You and I, every blessing that we get from God, it's a gift.

A gift is not really a gift if you earned it.

Like when you get your paycheck for working at your job, you would never call that a gift.

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Choosing Between Blessings & Curses

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