Choices We Make

We all have choices to make.  We can walk in the Spirit and be salt and light and bless others and honor the Lord through a personal relationship with the Lord, or we can live in unbelief and rebelliousness and displease the Lord!!  We all have a choice and a free will to choose what we want to do.

You might ask this question: why didn’t God just make people like puppets so He could just pull the strings and we would do whatever He wanted us to do?  If He wanted to, He could have made it so everyone would love Him and be obedient because they would have no choice.  Think about this, God doesn’t need us, He is fully complete in Himself but He chose to create man in His image and likeness because He wanted to, and to top it off He actually wants to have fellowship with us.

Maybe this example might help; what if your mom and dad were programed to love you and the rest of your family were also programed, how would you feel?  It might be nice for a time, but in time it would start bothering you.  Would you feel like you were really loved?  No, you would know that they were just going through the motions because they had no choice like a robot or a puppet.  

God wants people to love Him because they choose to and they understand His character, goodness and His concern for each person and because He is love.  God’s love goes beyond anything we can imagine or think.  I think that is one reason God didn’t program us to love Him.  Another reason could be, why would you want to spend eternity with God if you don’t want to spend time with Him here and now on earth?  If you would be miserable here serving and praising the Lord, what would you feel like doing it forever and ever?  God wants us to love and serve Him because we choose to and want to, that is why we all have a free will.

Think about what it says in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

God doesn’t make us come to Him, but He did provide the only way that we could come to Him and be made right with Him and that is through His Son, Jesus Christ.  He allowed Jesus to suffer the pain and shame and hostility that we should have suffered.  God allowed his Son, Jesus, to die in our place and shed His blood as a sin offering for us.  He had never sinned, but only through the shedding of blood could there be forgiveness of sins and it had to be a perfect sacrifice and Jesus was that perfect sacrifice, the sinless Lamb of God!! Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no man cometh to the Father except through Me.”  It is not by any good works that we can do and it is not by being a religious person, no, you have to be born-again.  You need to have a personal relationship with the Lord, that is the only way.

Read John 3 where a religious ruler comes to see Jesus and he does it at night in secret and he talks to Jesus who explains this to him.  Read verses 1-8, “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

This man who came to Jesus was a very religious man and a teacher of the law but he didn’t know what Jesus was telling him and there are many religious people that don’t know this or don’t teach it today.  Like I said earlier in this Tidbit we all have choices to make.  Read what it says in God’s Word in Matthew 7:21-29, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

I think you get the picture and this choice will be the most important choice you will ever make.  Jesus suffered a great deal so that you would make the right choice and my prayer is that you will.  Enough said, have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours!!  If you are a believer don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord, for He is worthy!!