For just over a year now, we have been talking about the authority and power that God gives us as Christians to make "faith choices" - choices we make by faith and not our feelings. What's sad is that many Christians still don't realize they have the authority to go against the tide of their emotions, and choose God's will regardless of how they feel.

John didn't want the divorce in the first place, but his wife, Stella, was tired of being married and simply wanted out. Amazingly, Stella got custody of their only child, eight-year-old Christa.

Last month we continued our series Against the Tide: Getting Beyond Ourselves by focusing on the subject of single-mindedness vs. double-mindedness. In the Greek, single-minded means only one life is being lived; whereas, double-minded means two lives are being lived.

II Corinthians 10:5-6 gives us a very important directive. It tells us to "take every thought captive" and to deal with the thoughts that are not of faith. God knows that taking every thought captive is critical because our thoughts are the first to be triggered in the chain-reaction of our souls.

Over the last several months, we have been exploring the power of our choice; i.e., our willpower. As Christians, God has given us the free choice to either follow His will moment by moment or follow what we think and feel. Emotional choices, however, quench God's Spirit. Whereas faith choices (choices to follow Him regardless of how we feel) unleash all of His power to come to our aid.

Is it possible to make choices to follow God when we don't feel like it, want to or think it will work? This has been the subject we have been exploring over the last few months - faith choices - and why they are so important.

God has given man a free will, much like His own. Our free will is the most important element of our make-up, because within that will lies the power to choose: to choose to follow what God desires us to do or follow what our own thoughts and emotions are telling us.

As Christians, most of us would agree that we've not been called simply to gain knowledge about Christ, but to gain more of His Life to give to others. We would concur that true Christianity is not about "head knowledge," but about Christ's Life being personally experienced and then passed on.

Last month we began a brand-new series called Against the Tide. This new series will cover some very simple, but extremely important, fundamental principles: i.e., how to walk by faith. If we don't understand how to make moment-by-moment faith choices, we may as well forget "living the Christian life!"