Think Like A Champion Ep 185 | The Power of a No-Retreat Mindset

on the other side of that quality decision is the day that God has promised. It's the day that you're going to have joy again. It's the day that you're going to find peace again. It's the day that you're going to sing again and shout again and celebrate again. Faith is not an emotion. It is motion. Faith is seen in the steps we take. You're not waiting on God. The valley is waiting on you to make the next step. The quality decision is what turns the valley of decision into a mountain of destiny. Welcome to Think Like a Champion, a podcast dedicated to helping you win in every way and enjoy every day. Thanks to everyone that likes or subscribes or shares our podcast and our content. In fact, right now, whatever platform you're on, subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, on Apple or on Spotify. And if there's an area to leave a review, I would love to hear from you. Now, let's get right into today's content because I want to talk to you about the power of a quality decision. The power, it may sound boring, but just wait and hang in there because this is an incredible verse, a promise in Scripture, Joel chapter 3, verse 10, the power of a quality decision. He says, "Multitudes, multitudes are in the valley of decision for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." What a powerful picture right now. He's saying there are multitudes in the valley of decision. A valley is a low place. In low places, you got to make high decisions. In low places, you got to make good decisions. In low places, you got to make quality right decisions. And notice what he says at the end of this verse, and I'll break this down more in a little while. "For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." In other words, when you make a quality decision in the midst of whatever valley or low place that you're in, the day of the Lord is near that decision. On the other side of that quality decision is the day that God has promised. It's the day that you're going to have joy again. It's the day that you're going to find peace again. It's the day that you're going to sing again and shout again and celebrate again. When you make that quality decision on the other side of that, the day of the Lord, and this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. So there's going to be gladness and joy on the other side of every quality decision you make. Now, what is a quality decision and why does it have power? Because people make decisions every day, hundreds of decisions every day. But quality decisions have two distinct marks. Number one, a quality decision is a decision from which there is no retreat. And number two, a decision in which there is no debate. A decision from which there is no retreat and a decision in which there is no debate. When you get a hold of those two aspects, that I'm about to make a decision that I'm not going to have a backdoor to. And I'm not going to debate with any person, including myself, because the greatest debates are the ones inside our own head. And the Bible talks about how that's a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James chapter one says, look, where there's movement, there's real faith. But where there's indecision, there's paralysis. We don't move in indecision. We move by making a quality decision. Faith is not an emotion. It is motion. It's not an emotion. It's motion. Faith is seen in the steps we take. And you're only taking steps when you've made a decision to trust the floor that you're walking on. Where there is no movement, there's no faith, where there's no movement, there's no quality decision. People who aren't seeing great results in their life need to look no further than the decisions they've made. They weren't quality decisions or they weren't quality decisions over a quality amount of time. They were decisions that they later retreated from or debated with themselves about and they lost that debate. As I mentioned in James chapter one, it says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And that word double-minded means inner debate. You're having an inner debate inside of your head. And a quality decision, a quality decision ends the inner debate. And at the instant that the inner debate ends is the instant that divine movement begins. Let's go through some biblical examples because there are plenty of them. We have Abraham who made a quality decision. Watch what he did in Genesis chapter 12, verses one through four. It says, "Now the Lord said to Abraham," or at this time his name was Abram. God later changed his name to Abraham. He said, "Leave your country, go from your relatives, from your father's house, to the land that I will show you." So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him. Notice Abram didn't say, "Lord show me first." Abram moved first. Faith moved him before understanding caught up. Now I want you to see this again. He said to Abraham, "Go from your country, leave your country." I have a chapter in one of my books called "Leave Your Country." It's rooted in this story. It's based on this story that he literally tells him to leave his country, leave his family, leave his relatives. He wasn't saying to abandon the people that he's related to. He was saying, "Leave the mindsets that you're stuck in. Leave the mindsets. Leave the ways of thinking, the mentalities that you grew up with, the mentalities of failure." These were people that were nomads. They would go from place to place and eat the remaining harvests that other people had left behind after they moved on. After they sowed their seed and gathered their harvest, ate their harvest and moved on, whatever was left over, that's what nomads would go and live from that fruit, from that harvest, the leftovers of the harvest. Abraham was that kind of, he was raised in that kind of family, that kind of movement, that kind of culture. God was trying to get him out of that mentality. He was trying to break that mentality because you're never going to have a breakthrough in your life until you break through the mentalities of failure, the mentalities that follow you generation after generation, the generational mentalities, the generational problems. You have to be able to break out of those things. When you do, you're going to see breakthroughs. God references that moment in Abraham's life later in Isaiah 51 and he says, "Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you rehewn. Look to Abraham your father. When he was one, I called him. Then I blessed him and multiplied him. When he was one, one person, God called him Abraham, father of a multitude of nations." But it says when he was one, he wasn't, he didn't have a child. He didn't have children or grandchildren. When he was just singular, it says God said, "I called him. Then I blessed him and multiplied him." I want you to see the calling came first. What God calls us is first and then if we embrace what God calls us, then he blesses and multiplies it. When we embrace, when we come into alignment with what God calls us. So this is when he was one, when he was alone, he moved. That movement marked him as the father of faith. What can we take away from this revelation? Well, every promise begins with a step that you refuse to take backward, a step that takes you into the future and leaves your past behind. A step in which there is no retreat from, there's no back door from. Every promise begins with a step. Every miracle begins with a step towards the unknown. Ruth is another biblical example. She made the decision to stay. Abraham made a decision to go because God told him to go. Ruth made a decision to stay because that was what, that was how she showed her loyalty. Now watch this. Ruth said in Ruth chapter 1 verse 16, "Do not urge me to leave you," she says to Naomi, "do not urge me to leave you or to turn back from following you for where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God." Ruth's decision was not based on feelings because the feelings to flee under pressure and under persecution and under potential death is easier. The pressure to leave, to flee, to run, it's always easier than to stay in it. Ruth's decision wasn't based on feelings, it was a movement. She walked away from Moab, which represented her past. She walked away from her past culture, her past comfort. That one movement aligned her with her destiny. It got her into alignment with her destiny because loyalty is faith in motion. We need to know when to go and when to stay. There is a time to go and there is a time to stay and you've got to know which of those moments require which decision and it's a quality decision from which there is no retreat and in which there is no debate. Remember those things. This will last you the rest of your life. A quality decision is a decision from which there is no retreat and in which there is no debate. When you consider the retreats, the way it's out, you won't enter into the power of that decision. The day of the Lord or the day of joy, the day of gladness is on the other side of that quality decision and in which there is no debate. You stop debating it. I made a decision that I'm walking with Jesus the rest of my life. There is no debate. There's no retreat. There's no debate. Where else can we go? Peter said and when Jesus said, oh, the multitudes are leaving. You guys want to go also? Peter said, where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Peter had made a decision from which there was no retreat and in which there was no debate. There was temptation and there was denial and there was the flesh and there was failure. But Peter stayed with it and Peter lived by the decision he made. When I made a decision to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and walk in the gifts of the Spirit and the power of tongues and the power of laying hands on the sick and seeing them recover, the power of faith and the power of miracles and expecting miracles, I had to make a decision from which there was no retreat and in which there was no debate. That's why you should get your information before you make a quality decision. But I gathered the information from the Bible. I read it. I prayed over it. I talked to God about it. I looked up all the scriptures about it. And once I was convinced that this was a biblical gift that God wanted me to have, ever since that day there has been no retreat and there has been no debate. There's been a lot of days praying in tongues, whispering in tongues, singing in tongues. I'm just using that as one simple example. Another example is a quality decision to give, to put God first, to tithe. You see, when I made that decision with my money that I was going to put God first in my finances, that was a decision from which there was no retreat and in which there was no debate. I wasn't going to debate myself about it. I wasn't going to debate my money about it. I wasn't going to debate my family about it. I was just going to do it without debate and I was going to do it without retreat. That decision over time has blessed me immensely. That decision over time has empowered me, inspired me and it's met me in the worst of all times. God's provision has always come through. And in the midst of the worst times, God creates the best times when you've made the decision in advance. When you make a decision in advance, a quality decision from which there is no retreat and in which there is no debate, that decision will carry you all the way to the other side of whatever adversity you face. That decision, that choice will carry you. It will launch you. It'll catapult you to the other side of oppression, the other side of fear, the other side of rejection, the other side of anxiety, the other side of depression, the other side of worry and anxiety, the other side of confusion and chaos in your life. A quality decision gets you to the other side. Well, Daniel made a similar decision like that, a quality one, the decision to stand. Daniel made up his mind. Daniel chapter one verse eight, he made up his mind, one translation says. He was resolute. He purposed in his heart, one translation says. He determined within himself. Don't worry about what other people do, what they decide. He purposed in his own heart, he determined inside himself that I am not going to be defiled with the king's choice foods. He made up his mind before the pressure came, that he would not defile himself, that he would not. Well, while everybody else was feasting, Daniel was fasting. Now I'm not here to talk about fasting. What I'm here to talk about is the decision he made, the quality choice, the quality decision before the pressure came. That led him to become one of the great men of all time. A quality decision is when heaven begins to move in your direction. A quality decision is a pre-decided conviction. He stood while others bowed. He and his stand moved heavens favor toward him. When you move in faith in advance, when you decide in advance, God will promote you. When you decide only when it's easy, there's not a lot of promotion because that's common. But when you make a decision when it's hard, when you decide in the toughest times, that's what God is honored by because that's your character. That's your faith. That's your trust in God. Well, we know Jesus was a man of quality decisions. He decided to go to the cross and that was a decision in which there was no retreat and in which there was no debate. It says in Luke chapter 9, when the days were approaching for his ascension, he resolutely set his face to go to Jerusalem. He knew what was on the other side of going to Jerusalem was death, but he made up his mind to die on the cross. He resolutely set his face, it says, to go to Jerusalem. Now, this is a scripture that was the fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah chapter 50, verse 7, and it says, "For the Lord God helps me; therefore, I'm not disgraced; therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed." This decision to go to the cross was Jesus setting his face like flint. And I asked, I thought about it, what's this word flint mean? Well, if flint is hard, it's a dense stone used to make sparks for fire and edges for weapons. That's what flint is. So when he set his face like flint, it was such a, it was a decision that started fire. It was this decision that ended all spiritual warfare was the decision to make this commitment with his life and his death without any retreat. The flint is one of the hardest stones and natural stones known for its unyielding surface. You can strike it, but you can't easily break it. You can't fracture it. When it's struck under pressure, fire emerges. You see, when Isaiah says he set his face like flint, it paints this picture of Jesus unbreakable, unwavering determination under all pressure, the kind that produces fire instead of fracture. Though there's a prophetic connection here because it shows us here that Jesus wasn't moved by his emotion. He was anchored in his decision. Jesus turned his face toward the cross with absolute resolve, no retreat, no debate, no hesitation, every distraction, every opposition or human reasoning, met with the unyielding will of heaven. Look, when you make a decision to believe God's promise, heaven is going to pour itself out in your life for decades to come because that's what heaven is made of. It's made of a decision that God made to share a place that we could live with him forever in eternity. That was a decision that he made from which there was no retreat and in which there was no debate. Jesus yielding himself to his decision caused him to yield himself to nothing but that decision. Even when Peter said, "Oh Lord, you don't have to do that. You don't have to go and die. We don't need all that." Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Get behind me, Satan. You're a stumbling block for me because you're setting your mind on your interests, not God's. You're not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's interests." That's what Jesus says to Peter. Jesus made a decision that was in our interest, not even his own, and anyone who stood in the way of that movement, anyone that stood in the way of the movement that came from that decision was opposing heaven's purpose, and that's why Jesus called it, called him Satan, "Get behind me, Satan." A quality decision will require distance from anyone or anything that tries to keep you comfortable instead of keeping you called. Follow the calling, not the comfort. That's what he describes in the Valley of Decision. In Joel chapter 3 that I read to you at the beginning, and I want to just make a couple points about this verse, the Valley of Decision. This is why so few people move. Most people get stuck, but Joel said, "Multitude, multitude in the Valley of Decision, multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision for the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of Decision. The Valley represents indecision where multitudes stay stuck ." He said, "We'll walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. We'll walk through the Valley, the Shadow of the Valley of Death. We'll walk through it. We won't sit in it. We won't get stuck there. We'll walk through it. Multitudes stay stuck because of indecision. They're not in the Valley because of God's delay. They're in the Valley because of their decision. They remain there. We remain there because of our choice. The Valley of Decision is a very crowded place. In fact, it's the most crowded place on earth. The Valley of Decision, full of people who never moved on what God told them, who never moved on what God said, who never did anything about the gifts God gave them, who never advanced the purpose that God showed them, that never spoke the prophecy that God gave them. They're waiting for more clarity, and heaven is waiting for your movement. Faith leaves the Valley, but fear lives there. So the Valley is a place of indecision. It represents indecision. And secondly, it represents pressure. The pressure is the doorway, though, to your purpose. The Valley is a place of pressure. It's the in-between place. When you're in between what you want to do and what you know you should do, it's in between of your prayer and the answer to your prayer. It's the in-between. What are you going to do in the in-between when there's pressure to give up, when there's pressure to quit, when there's pressure to throw in the towel, when there's pressure to give up your faith, to give up walking in these quality decisions. They're not quality decisions unless you burn the boats and burn the bridge to the boats. Burn the boats and burn the bridge back to them. That's where you're going to find, that's where faith lives, and that's where risk is taken, and that's where there's great reward, where there's great risk. Pressure always precedes purpose. If you stay there long enough, pressure, if you stay in the Valley and do not make the decision in that Valley of pressure, it will turn into paralysis. But if in that Valley of pressure you stick to your decision, that you're going to keep walking, you're going to keep moving forward, you're going to keep putting one foot in front of the other, you're going to keep moving forward even a little. You're not waiting on God, the Valley is waiting on you to make the next step. The Valley is just, it's objective. It responds to whatever you decide. You can live in the Valley and build a tent there with all the other people that are the mediocre-minded mentalities and mediocre-minded people that don't want to move forward based on a quality decision. You can stay there if you want, or you can start making the steps out because you're going to see God on the other side of that. You're going to see the day of the Lord on the other side of that. That's why Joel said, "For the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of decision." When you decide where there's indecision, you make a decision. Where there's pressure, you keep moving forward. Where it's temporary, you do not set your camp up there because the Valley represents a temporary place because the day of the Lord is near. That means God's response is almost immediate once you decide. The problem you're facing is temporary. The quality decision will get you through the temporary problem. The moment you choose that you are going to treat this problem as momentary, heaven moves on your behalf. A quality decision is what turns the Valley of decision into a mountain of destiny. Most people live their whole lives in the Valley, surrounded by the multitudes who never move. But champions, we don't live in the Valley. Come on, say that. I'm a champion. I don't live in the Valley. We make a decision to take the next step and climb the mountain of destiny. That's true spiritually. That's true financially. That's true in business. It's true in every aspect of life. A quality decision in which there is no retreat and from which there is no retreat and in which there is no debate and which you're always moving forward. Faith that doesn't move isn't faith at all. And the step you take becomes the signal that heaven responds to. Well, we're out of time on today's podcast, but I want to get into part two of this in our next podcast. And you're going to experience something that you've never experienced before on the other side of the power of quality decisions. Thank you for joining the podcast. Thanks for connecting here and joining me on Think Like a Champion. Remember to subscribe on YouTube or Apple or Spotify wherever you're watching or listening and let's stay connected. I can't wait to see you on our next podcast. Until then, keep thinking like a champion. God is with you. God bless you. Go for it. Move ahead.