Choice

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Every man or woman ever born has had a unique plan written for their lives before the womb:


Psalms 139:16-17 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!


This plan is utterly good, because it was written by the one who is the fullness of every good thing. God is the infinite expression of EVERY good thing. There is no one who could "out-good" God, otherwise that thing or person would usurp Him as God. God's very nature requires that He be the fullness of any attribute He ascribes to Himself. He is the source of the river from which every good thing flows:


Mark 10:18 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.


God has chosen love, because He is good. Love requires that I choose whether or not I will agree with God. Love required the tree of rebellion in the garden. Adam and Eve could eat from any of the trees in the garden but one. Why would a good God put such a dangerous tree in the garden?! For love! Without a choice to reject agreement with God, love could not be present in the garden.


What Adam and Eve did with that choice determined whether or not they would agree with love. We know the story: Adam and Eve said "no" to love and died...but the Author of Love did not stop saying "yes" to Adam and Eve or their children. Instead, God continued to make good plans for His people. Calling them into creation with hearts fashioned for greatness IF they would choose His good plans for them:


Psalms 33:14-15 From the place of His dwelling He looks On all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.


The enemy has always tried to convince man that obeying God will cost him good things, but the opposite is true (duh, satan is a liar). Not obeying God is the choice that truly costs us every good thing. Obeying God keeps my feet steadily traveling on the invisible path of greatness mapped out for MY heart before I was born.


The enemy is desperate to pull me off that path! Because God really has fully committed to love being made available to mankind, the enemy can't force me into his evil plans any more than God is willing to force me into His good plan. EVERYONE gets what they want in the end! God speaks truth and I have to choose whether or not I will listen...the enemy lies and I choose whether or not I will listen. The consequence of those choices are real and massive, for myself and those around me, but it really is that simple.


God's truth "sounds" costly on the front end. Trust the invisible One rather than control my own future? Give my time and money away freely? Resist letting myself be LEGITIMATELY offended? Lay down my right to be right? Forgive those who spitefully use me? Not just tolerate, but BLESS, those who use me....? Ugh! This sounds painful! How could this be good??!!


But it IS good. It is truth revealed from the Revealer of all good. The more I agree with Him about what is good, the further I advance along His perfect plan for greatness. The less I agree with God about what is good, the less I get of the good plan He has for me. It really is that simple.


Until Jesus came, the invisible God's plans for His children were MUCH harder to walk in. John the Baptist did it better than anyone before Him. John spent 30 years in the wilderness, rejecting what everyone else called normal or good, to prepare himself to lay everything at Jesus' feet in an 18 month ministry just to prepare the way for Jesus!


Matthew 11:11 “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.


When Jesus came, He made possible a helper to come inside of my Spirit and empower me to walk in this greatness, even more so than John, IF I will agree with it. Because I have the Holy Spirit inside my frame, If I want the fullness of God's plan for me on this side of eternity, all I have to do is agree with it, and be willing to ask to be empowered to do it!! What a glorious time I get to live in! BUT, will I take the time to exercise my free will and invite the Holy Spirit into my moment by moment choices? Or will I waste the power available to me?


The power to live in the fullness available is greater, but so are the consequences of approaching God casually:


Luke 12:48 But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.


Choosing to walk in the invisible path prepared for me brings real life on this side of eternity, and sets the trajectory of my life for eternity. There is glory and greatness forever for anyone willing to agree with God about what is good. The choices I make on this side of eternity are seeds that will germinate and blossom on the other side, where every eye will see what good really looks like. On that day, only One Man's opinion of good will ever matter again!


Luke 19:26 ‘For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.





Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise shall shine Like the brightness of the firmament, And those who turn many to righteousness Like the stars forever and ever.

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