Decisions Determine Destiny Part II: Six Decisions I’ve Made Recently That Have Changed My Future
If you’ve read part one of this teaching, you’ll remember I went through the nine points of my decision making system. This teaching will provide you with specific decisions I’ve recently made using that system.
The Bible is filled with stories of men and women who made crucial decisions. The woman with the issue of blood made a decision to act in faith, travel to where Jesus was and touch his garment. She was immediately healed.
The rich young man in the book of Mark made a decision to keep his earthly possessions instead of selling all he had to follow Jesus. Who knows, maybe if he had listened and followed Jesus we would be reading about him throughout the book of Acts. He might have become an apostle with churches named after him all over the world. But he made the wrong decision and now we’ll never know.
It’s important to understand why decisions are so important. The Bible says in Revelation 20:12,
“I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.”
People are judged according to the decisions they make, not what they believe. The Bible is a book about decisions; those who decided to obey God and those who decided to disobey God.
The first four of the ten commandments pertain to man’s relationship with God, and the final six refer to man’s relationship with each other. The Bible is a book that you can choose to obey or disobey. There are consequences either way. Your life is defined by the decisions you make, not by God or the devil.
The following six decisions are responsible for where I am today. I hope these illustrations help drive home the nine steps in my decision making system.
The decision to align myself and my ministry with people who were moving in the same direction
In 2007, I was licensed with the Assemblies of God at 19 years old. Not long after, they closed their national office for evangelism. At that time, the Assemblies of God was mainly for pastors, missionaries, youth pastors, and worship leaders. Evangelism wasn’t even offered as a minor in any Assemblies of God Bible schools.
I decided to leave the Assemblies of God with a grateful spirit and join myself with people who celebrated the office of the evangelist. Don’t miss the fact that I made two decisions. I decided to leave and I decided to leave with a good attitude. I decided to tie myself with people who didn’t have harsh comments for the area God called me to. The Bible says, “How can two walk together unless they agree?”
After I made that decision, God opened the door and connected me with Revival Ministries International. Pastor Rodney Howard Browne is an evangelist who celebrates evangelism. The pastors within his fellowship welcomed me. The decision completely changed my ministry.
This was a very specific decision that pertained to my life. In a broader sense, what I did was break ties with something I was comfortable with to go to the next level. It’s important to understand that not everyone can come with you to the next level.
To put it in perspective, most people can’t even keep their nuclear families together. There’s fighting, disagreements, and resentment that separate blood relatives. The 12 sons of Jacob couldn’t keep their families together. Within one generation all the cousins literally started attacking each other and burning each other's cities down.
Get comfortable doing what God’s called you to do without the approval of those close to you. It’s not your job to convince them that you’re making the right decision.
2. The decision to continue preaching in person during Covid
This is the defining decision of my life up to this point. In March of 2020, this decision seemed like certain death. Allow me to paint you a picture. I received over 400 death threats in three days. I was written about in the newspaper and talked about on the news. I had people close to me tell me my decision was going to ruin my ministry. Friends sent out emails positioning themselves against me. Alerting their members that they disagreed with our decision and declared we were no longer welcomed at their church. The only people I heard from once my decision hit the papers and the news was my mother and Pastor Rodney.
My decision had an up front cost.
Success has an up front cost and a long term benefit. Safety has a short term benefit and long term detriment.
In 2020, you were a hero if you closed your doors. You were celebrated by the media. You had access to government loans. That was the short term benefit. Now, all the churches that closed are either barely making ends meet or closed altogether. That’s the long term detriment.
If you preach healing for 15 years and then become so fearful of disease that you close your church, you lose credibility. That’d be like a prosperity preacher who decided to stop tithing during an economic crisis. You can’t be trusted.
Now we all know what the right decision was, but at the time even I wondered. That’s why having a decision making system is crucial. It keeps you from folding under pressure.
3. The decision to do Check The News
As a spiritual leader, you shouldn’t take a vacation while your people are struggling. In March of 2020, I had plans to take a vacation before all the chaos began, but I decided to do Check The News and preach at whatever churches were open at the time.
People were scared to death and wanted to know what the Bible had to say about what was going on around them. Were we in the tribulation? Was the antichrist coming? What about the mark of the beast?
Governor Gavin Newsom predicted 26 million people would become infected and 1.2 million people would die in California alone. The news media had experts that predicted every hospital bed in the country would be filled by May 8th and people would have to use their homes as hospital care. As time went on, different states claimed they would ban interstate travel and hire hundreds of thousands of employees to conduct door-to-door contact tracing, leading to the removal of children from their homes. Fear was rampant.
The Lord spoke to me and told me to address people’s spirits in the daytime and deal with their minds at night. So, at 10am I would teach on Psalm 91 and the protection and healing of God. At night, I would put their fear and worry at ease by highlighting the infection/mortality rate. I found a data analyst from Brooklyn, NY, Yossi Gestetner. Using the Diamond Princess cruise ship data he was able to conclude that Covid was either extremely deadly, but not contagious or extremely contagious, but not deadly. It was impossible for it to be both based on the data. There’s also not a chance that any American government could hire hundreds of thousands of employees, period, let alone during a pandemic. It put people’s minds at ease and helped them realize that even in the natural, Covid wasn’t something to fear.
I could have done Check The News from my living room with my iPhone, but I decided to use studio equipment to give the program validity. I knew that Right Wing Watch made a habit of criticizing preachers who spoke out against Covid measures. So, rather than blurt out my own opinions, I showed tweets from experts in medicine, virology, immunology, etc. If anyone disagreed, their problem wasn’t with me because they weren’t my words.
As a result of Check The News, we added many ministry friends and partners. It was another decision that took the ministry to a higher level.
4. The decision to align with Dr. Rodney Howard Browne during Covid
When Pastor Rodney was arrested for keeping his church open, there were many ministers who were licensed and ordained under him who immediately turned in their credentials. They thought being associated with him would ruin their ministry. Today, those ministries are half of what they were since they left. What’s even worse, once it became obvious that Pastor Rodney was right to stand up to the lockdowns, no one apologized to him. They all would rather continue to make bad decisions to cover up their initial bad decision of shutting their church down.
The Bible says, “Pride comes before destruction.” And destruction surely followed those ministries. Pride won’t let you admit you made the wrong decision and correct it. They could have just as easily apologized for getting caught up in the Covid hysteria like just about everyone else in the world.
The week Pastor Rodney was arrested, we spoke every day. He told me I was the ONLY preacher that returned any of his texts and calls that week. People run when trouble comes.
In stark contrast, I dedicated an entire episode of Check The News to backing Pastor Rodney after he was arrested. Our ministry basically doubled as a sweatshop as we manufactured t-shirts with Pastor Rodney’s mugshot in solidarity.
Deciding who to listen to and admire is a crucial decision that will affect your success in life. You won’t listen to someone you don’t admire. You’ll argue with people you don’t admire, but admiration will cause you to keep your mouth shut.
Be intentional about who you trust, listen to, and admire.
5. The decision to join Dr. Rodney Howard Browne at The Stand
It’s been three years since The Stand began. The blessing that is on Pastor Rodney is undeniably clear. What seems like a no brainer now, was not the easiest decision at the time. I planned to attend The Stand for one week to congratulate Pastor Rodney on The Stand and on his release from jail. I had a full schedule of meetings booked for the rest of the year. That was my comfortable plan for the year.
When The Stand first started it wasn’t packed with people like it is today. Back then even Florida had a curfew. People were hesitant to get on the buses and attend The River. There were around 200 people spread out over that large field. There was zero guarantee that I would receive any money. As a matter of fact, money wasn’t even mentioned. In the natural, it looked like I would take a massive financial loss.
When Pastor. Rodney said, “It would really mean a lot to me if you were able to stay with me this summer and do The Stand.” All of those realities were racing through my mind. I responded by telling him about all the meetings I had booked. Pastor Rodney repeated himself, “It would really mean a lot to me if you were able to stay with me this summer and do The Stand.”
In that moment, the Lord reminded me of the time my Uncle Ted found himself in a similar situation. When my uncle’s spiritual father, R.W. Shambauch ws battling heart problems, so he asked my uncle to take over his Chicago meeting. It was to be held in a huge arena. That may sound exciting, but it was also a huge expense that wasn’t paid for. My uncle chose to honor his spiritual father’s request.
I knew what I had to do. It was my turn to honor my spiritual father and his request. I found a three month short term lease and moved with my family to Tampa. At the time, it didn’t seem like anything miraculous was taking place. The attendance on the field wasn’t exactly astonishing. Little did I know, there were upwards of 13,000 people watching live online. The YouTube videos were getting 100,000 views. Not to mention it was on television for four hours every night.
The decision to stay and do The Stand didn’t just affect me, or Pastor Rodney, or even the state of Florida, it affected the world. I realize that I didn’t help Pastor Rodney, he helped me. In addition to blessing me financially while at The Stand, I saw a huge increase in my meeting attendance after I left. They didn’t just fill up, they overflowed.
It would have been a poor decision to leave The Stand after a week like I had planned.
What decisions do you make in the heat of battle?
6. The decision to make mistakes by being aggressive
If I make mistakes, I’m going to make them by being aggressive, not careful. I base my decisions on what the Bible says and gladly take whatever consequences follow. I refuse to discover for myself what happens when you abandon God’s word for safety.
Thinking back to peak Covid, it was an absolutely crazy time. This was what my schedule looked like:
10:00am-12:30pm: Broadcast with Adalis
7:00pm-10:30pm: Broadcast with Pastor Rodney
11:00pm-1:00am: Check The News
Every day except Sunday. That’s 8 and a half hours of broadcasting. We virtually lived in the office from 9am-1am. That’s aggressive!
I hope my review and explanation of my decisions has helped you. They can all be summed up like this:
Commit to doing what is right, rather than what’s easy.
The cost of doing what’s easy will always be higher than doing what’s right. The price for doing what’s right you’ll pay immediately, up front. The cost of doing what’s easy you’ll pay much later, but with heavy interest, like a credit card.
I had to endure three months of headaches to remain in obedience to God and His word and now I’m enjoying my life to the fullest. Others placed safety above God’s word and now they’re begging their congregation to come back to their church.
Faith is never a risk; unbelief is always a risk.
The Bible says in 1 Peter 1:7,
“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold–though your faith is far more precious than gold.”
My beliefs haven't changed since Covid, but my faith was tested and proven, and now it’s stronger than ever. You would have a very difficult time getting me to worry about anything. These experiences have made it clear to me that all the threats of the devil are nothing more than a smoke screen. He doesn’t have the power to carry out anything he says he’s going to do. I have a newfound baldness due to this realization.
When God said He’ll set you far above all nations of the world, He meant that He’ll enable you to operate above the nation you live in. You’ll be able to elevate your nation, but your nation won’t be able to drag you down!
I thank God for every person reading this. Lord, I pray that You’d eradicate any concern of those reading. Thank You for Your presence and Your hand that;s upon our lives, in Jesus name, Amen.
