BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

decisions you make this side of heaven. Doesn't God have any say at all in the matter? you might wonder. Yes, but He's already said it. He's already laid out clearly in His written WORD what His will is, not only for you but for every believer. In Psalm 91:16, He said, "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation." And in Exodus 23:25–26, He said: "Ye shall serve the LORD your God, and [your angel] shall BLESS thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfi l." Those two verses sum up God's plan for you. He intends for you to fulfi ll the number of your days and live a long, satisfying life. What exactly in His estimation qualifi es as long life? Contrary to what a lot of people think, it's more than just 70 or 80 years. The only place in the Bible those numbers are mentioned is in Psalm 90, where Moses was lamenting the shortened lives of the rebellious Israelites. They died at 70 or 80 because they refused to believe God would give them the Promised Land, and because they themselves had said they were going to die in the wilderness. Obviously, they aren't our standard for long life. Our standard for long life is found in Genesis 6:3, where "The LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is fl esh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." That's what God considers a normal lifespan—120 years. He won't make you live that long, of course. Nor does He guarantee you will live that long automatically just because you're His child. Having given His WORD that He's made that many years on this earth available to you, He leaves the decision as to what you're going to do about it up to you. He won't make the choice for you. As He told the Israelites when they were on their way to the Promised Land, "I have set before you life and death, BLESSING and cursing: therefore [you] choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19). What You Say Is Your Faith Talking How do you choose life? You choose life words, for as Proverbs 18:21 says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." Your tongue is powerful! You can use it to receive healing and health, or you can kill yourself with it. That's why the devil works so hard to get death words into your vocabulary. He can't kill you just because he wants to. He always wants to. But to succeed he must get hold of your tongue. Why? Because what you say is your faith talking. If you say, "I don't know what I'm going to do," it will be to you according to your faith. You'll continue not to know what to do. If you really listen to people, you'll be shocked at how much death there is in just their day-to-day conversations. They don't think twice about saying things like, "These shoes are killing me!" or talking about how something just thrilled them to death. "So, what am I supposed to say?" you might ask, "Something just 'thrills me to life'?" Certainly, that would be an improvement. But the wisest option is to speak the truth, without embellishment. Don't lie and say 6 : B V O V "How do you choose life? You choose life words."

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