Life is full of choices. Some choices affect only an evening. Others affect our lives forward to our deaths. Some affect us after we die, as well. Choices are the mark of freedom. But choice, and its relation to freedom, is often misunderstood in our society. We seem to think that freedom means the ability to make all of our choices, and to choose what happens after we've chosen.
Dr. Dan Fountain says that in Genesis 2:17, God clearly indicated something to Adam and Eve: "We are free to make choices, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those choices." For me, this puts the Genesis account in a slightly different light. Isn't that exactly what happened in the Garden, and isn't that exactly what happens today?
We want to choose what we do without having to take responsibility for our choices. People want to choose how far to go sexually, not by a preset standard, but by how we feel at the moment. Thus, we go from talking to kissing to petting to sex, because it felt so pleasant. Or we want to choose not to have a physical boundary. We'll choose to replace that behavioral (and foolproof) boundary with a tiny physical boundary (of questionable efficacy). So, we tell our lawmakers to provide money to distribute condoms in schools, because we don't understand that choices are linked to consequences. And when those measures fail and/or are chosen to be disregarded, we want to choose not to accept the consequences there, either. Assuming that there is any phantom 'escape' at all (for pregnancy is not the only likely consequence of choosing to be promiscuous), we want to take it, even if it means killing another human being. Why? Because we love our choices. It's assumed to be the woman's choice whether or not to kill her unborn infant. We want to choose that we can ignore both the moral precepts of God (see Ex. 21:22) and the declared right in the USA of every person to Life. I'm going to go on a tangent for a moment and say that it's not her body we're discussing. An unborn child has a completely separate body whose blood cannot mix with his or her mother's. The fact that the child is inside the mother's body does not make him or her part of the mother's body any more than a pack of chewing gum in your shirt pocket is part of your shirt. But I digress... And having chosen to kill her baby, the woman still wants choice over her consequences, and she wants to feel good about her choice, she wants to avoid the possibility of sterility, the grief, the disgust of others, particularly of the barren, who would gladly have taken her child and raised him or her as their own. I could go on and on.
But we are only human. We are not masters of this universe. We are shaky in our dominion over this world. We are completely powerless to choose the results of our choices. Our only power is in the choices themselves. We can choose according to God's plan, or we can choose according to what we think will bring us what we want in the short term. But in the end, our choices will come back to us with their dividends, and we shall be paid.
The Good News is this: It's not too late to choose God. It doesn't matter what you've done in the past. The eternal consequences of our past choices can and must be avoided, and Jesus Christ died on Calvary's cross to pay the eternal consequences for your sins and mine. But we have to make a choice. We have to accept what He's done for us, or we'll be paying those consequences ourselves, and let me tell you, friend, that you can't pay that price. Only Jesus can pay that price. Life is hard, and we do pay most of the temporal consequences of our actions, but Christ can help us and cause those troubles to strengthen us instead of weakening us. Christ's love extends to even you, no matter how much you've sinned. Make the right choice daily. Turn to Christ. He is able to help you.
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