Happy Friday everyone!
Today’s blog is a follow up to my blog, Love and Truth: A Delicate but Necessary Balance. I talked about choice in yesterday’s blog and the choice people make when you speak truth to them in love. Some of them will receive it and some will not and that’s okay. We must be okay with that reality. Choice is also bigger that what people do with truth. Choice is also about love.
Everything God created with the ability to make choices. He created angels with choices, even Lucifer and those who rebelled of their own free will (Revelation 12:7-8). He created humans with choices (Genesis 3). He even created animals with choices of their own (e.g. the serpent in Genesis 3). Why you ask? God does not desire robot creatures; He desires free will so that everything He has created will see His goodness. As far as humans are concerned, he created us with free will because he wanted a relationship with us of our own free will (Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 3:8-9). And His angels you ask? Although I do not know all of the reasons he created angels, I can tell you they are servants who chose to be with Him (hence those who fought against Lucifer with Michael in Revelation 12) and chose to serve God and serve, protect and minister to humans – even to this day. These are indeed supernatural mysteries to me, and I do not understand all they entail. I don’t understand why several of their kind would choose to rebel against God, be banished from Heaven and have no way to get back to their original purpose (scratching my head). Nevertheless, they chose, and we chose to rebel against God (see Adam and Eve’s tragic story in Genesis 3).
Did you notice something? God still made humans and other beings that would He knew would eventually rebel against Him. He still made the crafty serpent who he knew would allow itself to be Satan’s instrument. Did you notice something else? God didn’t stop granting choice after mankind and angels rebelled. He didn’t stop the consequences of choices from coming but He did not eliminate choice from His creation. He did not destroy Adam and Eve, the angels who didn’t choose Him or even the serpent. We still have snakes on the earth today. We humans are still around today and so are these fallen angels. Why do you think He responded this way? I am convinced that God responded this way because He is love! There’s that word again, Love (1 John 4:7,9-10)! Because He is Love, He gives us choices, to do good or to do evil. Because he is Love, he did not destroy his creation the moment they failed. Because he is Love, He allows us to deal with our consequences so we may know the truth – there’s that word again, Truth!
Do you see now how love, truth and choice are all connected? That is why it is imperative that choice and freedom are forefront in a society. With choice comes consequence, and with consequence comes truth of whether that choice was good or bad, and with truth comes the ability to change and repent if evil was the first choice, and with repentance and change, the choice to learn to love. They are all connected! God wants us to have a choice, so we have an opportunity to repent and change and be free to learn love! Just as today’s blog title says, you can’t have love without choice! It is impossible!
I will leave you with a verse I think of often in closing today:
Deuteronomy 30:15; 19-20; See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction…This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life.
Love,
Elizabeth