For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.  Galatians 5:13-15 NASB

As human beings, we are given free will. But as the lyrics of the hit song by the Isley Brothers says, “It’s your thing, do what you wanna do”. God tells us how we should live, but He is not a dictator. He encourages us to live in a way that will allow us to spend glory in heaven with Him for eternity, but He doesn’t force His way on us. He sent His son to die on the cross that we may be saved from our sins, but we are not forced to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.

It’s our thing and we can do whatever we choose. The question today is what do you choose?

I will admit that I wish that God had just made us all perfect little robots programmed to do things His way from the start. But, God chose to give us free will. We have the choice to love Him and follow Him. We don’t have to, it’s entirely up to us. We can choose whether we enter into a close relationship with our Lord and Savior. We can choose whether we want to pray to him without ceasing as we are instructed to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. We can choose whether we want to make time to spend in God’s Word, meditating on it and doing as it instructs us to do (Joshua 1:8). We can choose whether or not we want to get up on Sunday morning and attend church as we are instructed to do in Hebrews 10:25. We can choose to love God with our whole heart (Luke 10:27, Mark 12:30, Matthew 22:37, Deuteronomy 6:5). We can choose to love our neighbor as we love ourselves as our scripture passage tells us to do. Or we can choose to pick and choose which commandment we will obey or choose to obey none of them. It’s all up to you, for now.

The Ten Commandments begins in Exodus 20 with telling us that we should put nothing or no one before God, but yet we still have people or things that get in the way of us doing what God has called us to do.

There was a time in my life when I chose not to pray each and every day. There was a time in my life when I only opened my Bible when I attended church, which was sporadically. There was a time when I only attended church if I woke up on time and had nothing else to do. I made some poor choices. Poor Choices lead to poor results. Anyone who has tried to diet and exercise can tell you that if you choose to eat junk all day and not exercise the results will be negative. If you want positive results it takes time and a conscious effort.

I want you to remember something about the free will that God gives us, it has an expiration date. It expires when we do. When we pass away from this earth, we will face the Great White Throne of Judgment (Revelation 20:11-15). There we will answer for those choices made here on earth. We will answer to Him and give account for every action and every word that has spewed forth from our mouths (Matthew 12:36).

So this is why I want you to understand that while God gives us free will, what we do with it determines our eternal destiny. It is very important that you use that free will wisely. We are told in Philippians 2:10, Romans 14:11, and Isaiah 45:23 that there will come a time that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. If you wait until you face judgment to do that my friend, you must know that it will be too late.

So my friend, again I say to you, it’s your thing, do what you what you wanna do. You can choose to believe in Him or not believe in Him. You can choose to accept Christ as your Savior or not accept Christ. You can choose to confess your sins to Him and earnestly repent or not to do so. You can choose to spend time with him throughout the day in prayer and spend time daily in Bible study or you can choose to watch TV or play on the internet. You can choose to go to church or to sleep in or watch movies all day. It’s your choice, for now.

But I must warn you that there will come a day when you will no longer have a choice. Based on the choices you have made while here on earth, God will choose for you where you will spend eternity. That’s a long time, my friend, I pray that you choose wisely.

Have a great day!