Freedom to Choose ...

To end the pain, and see truth, one must make a choice to do so. Life does not require it. It is deeply personal and it cannot be forced by circumstances, peer pressure, or even supernatural forces. It is the singular choice we make in our lifetimes. Every other choice we make stems from this one, whether for our benefit, or our ultimate destruction. We are in fact, free to choose only whom we will serve. In our addicted and pathetic state of slavery to evil, it requires God’s grace to even have the freedom to make this rudimentary choice. But this is the choice we are offered freely. And we are free to choose our end as a result.

The outcomes are sure, but the selection is up to us. To choose our Creator God and His plan for our Salvation from evil, is to destine our lives towards success. To not make this selection, to delay or quibble, to remain in a state of contemplation on the topic and avoid commitment – is to prolong the condition we are in today, and keep pain as an active part of our daily lives. Our own nature of self interest will someday cause us to implode. The core of how we function is based on a premise to cause us immeasurable pain throughout our lives. It is the recognition of our condition that leads us to the need of a Savior. When you do not see the pain you cause yourself, refuse to recognize it, or blame it on others or even God – you remain bound to its power over you, and a slave doomed to feel its effects again and again.

Love is a choice. Love cannot be forced. This is why God offers us His plan and never commands us or forces us to choose it. It is logical to choose love. It is smart to choose relief over pain. It seems ultimately what the best choice is, but it remains a choice many walk away from. Satan is about control. He is the opposite of God in every respect. Where God offers you love, Satan would impose his will over even your basic decision to choose. This is the nature of the evil kingdom, where slavery, addiction, and power over the weak are things of praise. Obviously none of these facts would do well in a marketing brochure, so in order to deceive the masses, evil presents the alternative choice to God, as merely self-control, self-domination.

Evil would have us believe that should we choose to avoid a choice for God, we are free to run our own lives, free to do anything we want without guilt or condemnation. Evil would have us believe that we cannot be free while serving God or others, we can only be free when serving ourselves. And this alternative choice has been very popular for a long time. It fits well with our nature. It appeals to our ego and natural self interest. It is what we WANT to hear, and what we WANT to believe, whether it is true or not. But facts on the ground reveal its fallacy. The pain we continue to inflict on ourselves and others while we remain under the illusion of control is a real-world testament to the fallacy of freedom absent God. To deal with this fact, Satan simply blames God for it. Rather than let you take any responsibility for your own actions, decision, and behaviors which have caused you inordinate pain, Satan blames God for allowing you to do all these things. And very often we buy into his arguments hook, line, and sinker.

The truth and the facts, when examined without the rose colored glasses of self interest on, show that indeed we are our own worst enemy. Acting selfishly is the primary cause of pain in our lives, and our condition of addiction requires something outside of ourselves if we are ever to break this cycle. In short we need a Savior to save us from ourselves, from our natures, from our thinking, from our behaviors. This is what each of us desperately needs, and as each of us is different, a unique individual, so the work of saving us must be personalized to fit our unique needs. This is exactly what God has offered us in His gift of love.

But some Christians have taken God’s gentle offer of love, and tried to turn it into a mandate of enforcement over “the guilty”. While Christ Himself did not condemn our guilty world while here on earth, some of His purported followers spend their entire existence doing just that. They reason that sin must be called by its proper name. They reason that attention must be drawn to the law of God so that evil doers can see the error of their ways. Yet they do not look in the mirror. They do not see the evil that lies within them, nor that they are doing the very work Satan does – accuser of the brethren. It is not a question as to whether the world is guilty of sin and evil, it is. Neither is it a question as to whether we are guilty of it, we are. Guilt has never been the question. Our pain alone should tell us that. What to do when you are guilty is the question, how to save the guilty is the question, ending the pain of the guilty is the question. Redemption itself is the goal for all who feel the sting of self inflicted pain.

For a choice to be true it must be free. This is the peril of our existence, that we are truly free to walk away from the offer of our Salvation. God actually does allow us to reject Him. He does not recommend it, His love fights hard to lure us back, He does everything He can to try to show us why choosing Him is our best decision. But at the end of the day, God unlike Satan, does not compel anyone to do anything, or make any choice. His followers would do well to learn this lesson and stop imitating Satan and calling it the work of divinity. We are indeed free to choose. Life or death, it is our choice, and therefore someday our responsibility and no one else’s.