You Choose!

 Morning Musing: December 19, 2018

You can choose to bring forth good fruit or bad.

We were not created depraved and helpless...God is our help and His grace teaches us His righteous ways. But He created us with the power to choose. Had He not He would be to blame for the many evils; and we would be blameless for having no choice in what we do.

It seems to me people have created theologies that point to this idea that we can not do any good and some would perhaps say we can not do any bad. But what do the Scriptures say:

Isaiah 7:15
Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Isaiah 7:16
For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

Deuteronomy 30:19
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Joshua 24:15
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

The power to choose enables real love to exist. Otherwise what people do would be rather meaningless since they have no choice as if God alone controls them...He enables us to choose to serve Him, to choose to do good, or to choose to serve our own desires. This means His judgment is just. He would have all men to come to repentance, He is long-suffering towards us, patiently waiting for us to choose to love & serve Him of our own free will.

So don't wait for God to make you choose what is right....it doesn't work that way. Yes, we need His help...and He will help us by allowing us to suffer the consequences of our bad decisions to help us see it isn't worth it to choose our own deceitful lusts. But if we love Him (we have the choice to love Him) we will keep His commandments.

John 14:15
If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Being a Believer means:
because we believe what Christ taught we make choices accordingly....we keep His commandments because we believe His warnings of what will happen if we do not. Otherwise, we are just make-believers.

John 3:18-21 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

*Photo courtesy of : varjag