God Lets Us Choose

We can find plenty of scriptures that tells us God chose us and he knows our destiny.  There is no way to change his mind about us.  He will love us no matter what.  He shows mercy to the repentant heart.

Many people haven't grasped this about God.  It took me until I was thirty-three to even accept Jesus and a few months in a spirit filled church to understand it for myself.  Jesus wants to be our friend.  Not someone we get all silly with, but a friend we can talk to about anything.  We are to be his brothers and sisters.

God lets us chose if we will love him back.  We know his will by reading the Bible and gain knowledge through prayer, open communication with God.  If we are claiming to be Christian, we better be in the Word and in prayer daily. This is how Jesus beat the devil in every challenge presented.  One that is very important, we do not live on bread alone, but on the Word of God.  Without that food we are losing out on the knowledge God supplied to help us know him.  If we are not praying in a way that is communicating with God, we are not going to see or hear any answer to prayer.

Even the strongest Christian can be slammed by the storms of life and Satan to the point of falling.  We all are going to stumble in our walk with Jesus.  It is how we get back up that matters.  Are we going to be repentant and confess to God what we did in order to gain his mercy?  Or are we going to stay mad about it and play the blame game?  The blame game got Adam and Eve evicted from the Garden of Eden.  Trying to use an excuse for what he did caused Cain to be sent out to an even harder life off the land.

David, on the other hand, repented for how he had claimed Bathsheba as his own and then had her husband, Uriah, killed in battle when he would not go home to his wife while back in the city and the war still waged on.  He lost the child that was conceived in sin, even after he repented, but later his son, Solomon, born to Bathsheba, became the greatest and wisest king ever seen on earth.  The continuing bad side was much strife in the family with it leading to further sins by his children.  God does forgive and forget our sincerely repented sins, but sometimes the sin still has effects and circumstances further in our lives.  You can find the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. 

Joshua had it right even near the end of his days when he challenged the Israelites to chose.  Joshua 24:15 (NIV) says, "But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

Jesus challenges us in John 7:16-19 to prove if his teachings are from God by saying, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him."

In order to have a blessed life and many years in the Promised Land, Moses challenged the Israelites to chose life.  Deut 30:19-20 (NLT) says, "Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, that you and your descendants might live!  Choose to love the LORD your God and to obey him and commit yourself to him, for he is your life. Then you will live long in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

So we can chose to do things our own way and not bother with God at all, but what good will that do?  It just keeps us from his love.  We can live a life that feels cursed because God is not with us or we can chose to accept him for a blessed life.  I am not talking about a smooth sailing life, but of one in which we are overcomers in Jesus as our blessing.  I'll echo Joshua by saying, "I will serve the Lord."