Choice Revelations

It's a funny thing that happens to you when you study His word, especially as a person who has received the Holy Spirit! What happens? You begin to understand. I have studied the Bible before, but came away confused and feeling that the Bible was nothing more than an old book written by humans.

I have seen new light being shone on the words I have been reading, and slowly, one by one, my doubts and misconceptions about God have been removed from my thoughts and feelings. I would like to write about one that I just came to realize this morning, and that is that we have a choice in life. Our lives are not scripted. We are not on a track.

One of the great deal breakers that put of many people who are thinking of becoming Christian, especially in North America, is the misconception that God wants to control our lives, our thoughts, even our every action. Nothing could be further from the truth! In order to prove that statement, I'll have to dig a little deep here.

1. God is perfect. Ok. Lets think about that statement. God is the beginning, the end, God is everything! He created the universe with a word. He designed all the living things on the planet. Not only is God ultimate power, God is ultimate good! Think about that. If you were perfect, and perfectly good, could you make a decision that not inherently good? Would you be even able to do or say ANYTHING that was evil if you were perfectly good? No, of course not!


2. Satan is evil. Before we can get to really thinking about Satan, we must first accept that he is real. Many religions have either dismissed the reality that Satan exists, or hidden his presence and intent in words that hide his purpose and intent. If you believe in God, you must believe in Satan, for all of life has balance. For cold there is heat, for light there is dark. For famine there is feast. To know one thing there has to be an opposite to compare it to. If God is Ultimate Good, then Satan is Ultimate Evil.


3. God gave us free will to choose between either Him or Satan. It goes back even to the Garden of Eden, when God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from anything in the garden, but the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil was off limits, for if they ate from that tree then they would surely die! Did God put a fence around the tree and make it impossible? No! He laid out a command, and offered a consequence for disobedience! He gave Adam and Eve a choice!

Think about that will you! You have a choice. You can choose how to live! You can choose to obey God or not!

BECAUSE GOD IS PERFECT, HE CANNOT GO BACK ON HIS WORD AND TAKE AWAY OUR CHOICE!

Now, lets consider those statements in our lives and how it really impacts our day to day life. Often times, tragedy comes into our lives. Someone dies, evil happens, and people are hurt. Many times I have heard a question similar to this; "If God was so loving, how could he allow that innocent person to be murdered?" Two forces are involved here that can offer an explanation as to why evil such as this happens.

The first force involved, when discussing anything evil, is Satan. Satan is perfect hate, and he desires to separate us from what is good. He will use any means at his disposal to make us hate! Satan does not control us, any more than God does, but he wants to control us! Through lies, circumstance and the lack of any meaningful tools to combat him, most in the world find themselves influenced by his whispers in our ears. They choose to listen to the devil.

The second force involved is our choice. If you think you don't have a choice, consider this. When confronted by a moral decision, how often have you struggled, say deciding between the lesser of two evils, or perhaps you used the logic of the ends justify the means? You can choose, no matter how hard or trivial the decision! God never imposes his will on us, but always lets us choose! He gives choice to you, and he does it for the evil person too!

Our free will is the explanation for all the evil in the world. We are not forced to do anything we don't want to do, and in the end we all make a choice. Sadly, most of us on the planet choose evil. Selfishness. Gluttony. The list is really very long!

We have a choice! Choose Jesus....