When God created the Heavens and the Earth, He created people in His image on the 6th day. (Genesis 1.24-27). Included in this image is our gift to be free-thinking, imaginative individuals who can make our own choices. This is free will. We have the right to obey or disobey God. God did not want servants He could command; rather, He wanted children with whom He could have a relationship (Galatians 3.26).
However, our gift of free will came with a heavy price. In the Garden of Eden there were two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2.9). The Tree of Knowledge represents our gift of free will to choose. God gave us the ability to obey (knowing only good) or disobey (knowing both good and evil). Of course, humans are imperfect and many times we make the wrong choices. However, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can also make many wonderful choices. God knew that we would fall short of His Perfect standard (Romans 3.23), which is why He also planted the Tree of Life.
The Tree of Life is often associated with Jesus and the restoration of God’s people (Revelation 22.2). The heavy price of our gift of free will came at the cost of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, coming down to Earth, living a perfect life and exchanging His righteousness for our sins by dying on the Cross and resurrecting three days later. The grace Jesus gives us wipes clean our choices made outside of God’s will and perfects the choices made within God’s will. Our free will through the Finished Work of the Cross allows us to create beauty on Earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 18.18).
We live in a world of free will and many people either don’t believe in our Creator God and/or don’t obey Him. Jesus fulfilled the Law and left us with a command: Love God, love others, and love ourselves (Mark 12.30-31NIV).
Knowing that people would fall short of His holy standard did not prevent God from creating us. God is love, and out of His great love for us, He created us, designed us with purpose, gave us free will and appointed a redemption plan through Jesus Christ (Jeremiah 29.11, Galatians 5.13 & Ephesians 1.7). The only problem is that people who do not love themselves cannot love others. In this life, people will hurt us, and we will hurt others. However, if we have a growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will guide our steps in love.
Free will is a precious gift Jesus died to give us. We want to use it in obedience to the Holy Spirit with love as our driving force. God loves when we create beauty in this world that shines His glory to others. We can choose daily to listen to God, obey His leading, imagine God’s best for our lives and take actions toward our destiny.
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9.24 NIV).
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