Free Will

When we are faced with decisions to make we have two choices; right or wrong. Which one we choose is based on our desire to fully please God or to fully please ourselves. We have free will and the decision is ours but the consequences are ours as well. Sin comes in many shapes and sizes and we might even consider some sin so small that it is insignificant to God. But all sin is significant no matter how big or small. Freedom does not mean the absence of constraints. We need boundaries and discipline in our lives to keep us balanced. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

God doesn’t put restraints on us to punish us he restrains us to keep us safe and out of harm’s way. He gave us His laws so that we can live a life of freedom. Oswald Chambers puts it like this: “Whenever God touches sin it is independence that is touched, and that awakens resentment in the human heart. Independence must be blasted clean out, there must be no such thing left, only freedom, which is very different. Freedom is the ability not to insist on my rights, but to see that God gets His.

The world today is full of greed and the need for power and money. It is all about me, me, me and what you can do for me. Self absorption and lusting after the things of the world are acceptable by today’s standards. Don’t get caught up in the sinful ways of this world. Instead fill yourself with the love of God; through His word, through songs of praise and worship at church. Saturate yourself with the things of God and watch your life transform in front of your very eyes.

SCRIPTURES

Everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible, but not everything builds up. No one should seek his own good, but the good of the other person. 1 Corinthians 10:23-24

Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be brought under the control of anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12

So then it does not depend on human will or effort, but on God who shows mercy. Romans 9:16

So, I discover this principal: when I want to do good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the part of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin. Romans 7:21-25

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:26-27