The Mystery of Choice
What might life have looked like, if you had chosen differently?
Every big decision you’ll make in your life contains the DNA of a thousand smaller, seemingly
insignificant choices—that you’ll probably never remember
• Those are the choices that have put you where you are today
• They are also the choices that have made you who you are today
What causes us to choose one way or another?
• Can we change the outcome of our major choices by paying more attention to the minor
ones?
• Can we change the DNA of our decision making?
Choices have an incredible impact on how our lives turn out
• A decision you made five years ago can limit the decisions you have available today
You need the wisdom of God imbedded in your decision making process
• Spend significant time in the word of God
• You’ll have more peace and less confusion
• Maintain an atmosphere of peace
• Be willing to sacrifice areas of your life to keep it
• Stress creates a filter that hinders your decision making capabilities
• Be prepared for delays and spiritual warfare
• The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, is actually a verb; not a noun
• It means the removal of anarchy and chaos around you
The Moment of Choice
• Every Choice begins with a stimulus
• The Moment of Choice happens right after the stimulus and right before your choice
• It determines whether you respond in the spirit or in the soul
• Filter is what you are ruled by: your soul or your spirit
• Choice is going to be determined by which one you’re ruled by
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Every choice starts with a stimulus
• A stimulus is something that prompts a response
The moment of choice is where all decisions take place
These aren’t big choices, but they are the hundreds of choices you’re going to face in your daily
walk of life.
• These make up the DNA of your character
Copyright © 2013 John Paul Jackson. All Rights Reserved. 1
Filters are thoughts which become a lens by which you see the world
• They determine whether those choices are made from the tree of knowledge which is the
soul, or the tree of life which is the spirit
• The longer you have these opinions, the thicker the filter becomes and the darker your
lens gets and less likely it is that you will have a spiritual response
Inside the DNA of every life-altering decision you make, you’re going to find the strands of a
thousand smaller choices
• Those choices then become a pattern
• The pattern becomes reality
• That reality becomes something very difficult to escape from
• It’s as if by making a choice, we no longer have a choice
How does a thought or an opinion about something lead to life-altering decisions?
• Thoughts
• Actions
• Habits
• Character
• Destiny
You can’t change your destiny without going all the way back to the beginning—your thoughts
But it’s never too late to start your future history
• By changing the DNA of our choices at the root—by changing the way you think
God will test your obedience at the moment of choice throughout your life
A filter is a thought process that we have that predisposes us to make a decision out of our own
soul or out of our spirit
• Our soul is made up of our mind, will and emotions
• Our spirit is made up of wisdom, communion, and conscious
• Filters develop over time
• They become a part of our decision making process
Even in the smallest choices you make every day, you can choose to follow what the Spirit is
saying, and learn to tune out what the soul is saying
It’s the same process as learning the Art of Hearing God
It’s not about trying to turn the voice of the
Spirit up; it’s about turning the voice of the soul down
• You turn down the voice of the soul by removing the filter that have built up over time,
then work on establishing your atmosphere of peace through prayer and the word
• Then you start to build spiritual filters that will help you make better decisions whenever
the next stimulus comes your way
Copyright © 2013 John Paul Jackson. All Rights Reserved. 2
God knew how important the small choices would be
• Choices would lead to actions that would become habits. Those habits would form your
character and your character would determine your destiny
So He sent His very Spirit to comfort and counsel you; to guide you
There is something else that happens when you spend your life listening to voice of the Spirit
inside of you: you begin to attract the same kind of people—it’s called the Law of Attraction
Copyright © 2013 John Paul Jackson. All Rights Reserved. 3
