Our Choice

If you are a true believer, you know that Jesus loves everyone even His enemies and He loves them all equally.  He despises no one but wants each one to repent and make Him Lord of their lives.  

Knowing this you might ask this question, why He does He not make everyone receive Him, He has the power to do it?  That is a good question, if He loves everyone and His Word says that He isn’t willing that any be lost but all come to repentance, why doesn’t He do just that, things would be so much easier and much more peaceful and much less stressful.   Questions like this have been asked many times over the years and will continue to be asked, so let me try to answer this question.

The simple answer would be that He wants it to be our choice so He gives everyone a free will to choose for themselves.  I believe that He gives everyone the opportunity because He is fair and just, but because He knows all things, He knows that many will reject Him and I think this makes Him very sad.  The shortest verse that I can remember in God’s Word is when Lazarus died and it says this, “Jesus wept.”  Typing this out, I am reminded of what Jesus said to His chosen people, the Israelites, although most rejected it, in Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

It seems that the same thing is happening today, even though the Lord calls, many never seem to hear Him, not allowing Him to be the Lord of their lives and there are backslidden believers that have made this same choice.  I was talking to one yesterday who has chosen to go his own way and do his own thing at the present time.  I hope the Lord will use some of the things I shared with him to show him the error of his ways and he will repent and confess his sins and turn back to the Lord.  

Getting back to the question I talked about earlier, think about this, how would you feel if your children only loved you and respected you because you forced them to?  That wouldn’t be real love and true respect at all. True love is an emotion that comes from one’s heart and cannot be forced or pressured to take place, it takes place because of the willingness and the choice on the person’s part to do it.  I think a person can be influenced by the way they are treated, but in the end they will have to choose to love or not to love.

Take a dog, for instance you can beat the dog into submission and scare him into listening to you but all you will end up doing is breaking his spirit.  Sure he will jump every time you speak to him but it will only be done out of fear and not because he loves and respects you.

Jesus doesn’t choose to beat us into submission, even though He could, the evil one is the one who uses those tactics, but Jesus made a choice to set us free.  So, He came to earth and allowed Himself to be mistreated, crucified, killed and buried which He did for us.  Jesus became the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sins of the world because He loved us that much.

It says this in God’s Word, in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

It also says this in God’s Word in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

How can someone love you more than this, that he would lay down his life for you?  Jesus showed this unconditional love for us, so how should we respond to Him?  It should be by unconditional love for Him.  I hope you feel this same way.  Something to think about!  May you experience the love that the Lord has for you today and every day!  God bless you and yours and may your day be filled with blessings!!