Freedom to Choose

Questions about God’s sovereignty have been on my plate recently. Is He in charge or isn’t He? The straight answer is that He is fully sovereign, always is fully sovereign, and has never NOT been fully sovereign. But He has chosen to do things with His sovereignty that make the picture from here seem unclear at times.

Look around you. Look at the world. What a mess, right? So, how did things get so bad? It has to do with God sovereignly ordaining the freedom to choose, first to the angels and then to humanity.

Imagine this scene. On this side, we have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit backed by their Holy Angels. And over there is satan and his evil spirit fallen angel cohorts who were on God’s side until they chose to rebel.

Between the two sides, in the middle, is the earth and all of its inhabitants. He loves what He made.  

He doesn’t just feel love, He IS love. 1 John 4:8. The Greek word used for that kind of love is “Agape”.

God wants to do more than simply indulge His Agape love in the things He creates. He wants to be loved back! To accomplish that, He had to give humans the freedom to choose to love Him or reject Him. Otherwise, all He’d done was create a race of pre-programmed robots. Very unsatisfying.

His sovereignty is unlimited, right? Yes, that’s right, His sovereignty is unlimited. He exercised His sovereignty when He deliberately gave humans the Freedom to choose between good evil.

His heart is set on having people in heaven who CHOOSE to love Him. He will not violate your freedom to choose, otherwise we’re back to robots.

So who’s responsible for the evil and harm in the world? Not God. He doesn’t cause anyone to choose the path of evil and harm. Consciously or unconsciously, people choose that path on their own.

Never forget that this is a broken world. Evil exists, though in the long run, it won't. For now, evil is here in the form of Satan, his fallen angel cohorts, and the people who also choose evil. They are exercising their God-given freedom of choice to do evil and cause harm. 

God has a Master Plan. Giving people and angels freedom to choose is an integral part that Master Plan. His plan is for heaven to be filled with people and angels that truly love Him.

You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choices. God has never stopped loving what is good and right while hating what is evil. Yes, the evil breaks His heart, but, He allows the evil just for this present age. He does all of this so He can end up with more people in heaven who CHOOSE to love Him.

We must ask: Does He want EVERYONE to choose to love Him and spend eternity with Him in heaven? Yes. The answer is Yes. But will He force anyone to make that choice? No, the answer is He won’t.

1 Timothy 2:4 tells us that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

He is trying to draw as many souls as possible into a right relationship with Him through Jesus but He is not forcing anyone.

Jeremiah 31:3 says The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you."

With age, I now see that in Jeremiah 31:3 God is telling about His heart towards humanity. He is not forcing anyone, but He is working to draw everyone.

Let me boil this down. He wants people to choose to love Him and be with Him. Pre-programmed robots won’t cut it. So, He gave people free will. He won’t violate your free will, but He will judge you for the path you choose.

Father God gives people the freedom to choose to be made right with Him through Jesus. For His plan to work, He sovereignly chose not to take over anyone’s free will…otherwise, it wouldn’t be free will.

He knows what a contaminated mess the human race is. He knows that there’s not a single person EVER who could purify his fallen nature on his own. He knows what a moral train wreck every single person is.

He knows none of us can fix ourselves but He wants us anyway. So He sent His Son, Jesus, to make THE way for us to be transformed and made right with Him in spite of ourselves. Why? Because He wants to spend eternity loving and being loved.