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The Power of Choice

 


God is love: and in Him is life. Therefore, love and life are from everlasting to everlasting. For love, from which all that is good is derived, to truly be experienced, the element of choice has to exist. Thus, God created all intelligent beings with the power of choice.

For choice to be exercised, there has to be at least two things from which to choose. Seeing that God is love, He had to contrast Himself with something else, in order for intelligent beings to have a choice.  So, God created the opposite of His character – the opposite, so that no one needs be confused between the attributes that are God’s and those that are not.  From love proceeds good and from love’s opposite, proceeds evil – thus the tree of knowledge of good and evil.   This tree, man was forbidden to eat from. Now man has the option for choice.  However, God made it clear to all, that disobedience to His principle (which would be a choice for evil) would result in death – death being the opposite of life.

When God created intelligent beings with the power of choice; He ran the risk of them choosing hate, evil, and death, instead of love, good, and life. But He had no other option, for had He not done this, His creatures would have functioned as robots, which is contrary to what God and true love is. God would rather have man free than safe – free to choose if he wants to be safe.   

There came a time when man disobeyed God and ate from the forbidden tree.  He now became aware of evil. Before, all he knew was good, for he was surrounded by good.  Many times, God permits evil, man’s choice, to befall him, as a disciplinary measure, for that is what man understands, and by it his attention is gained.  So hopefully, he may turn and seek good, for this is God’s intention when He permits the evil.

The enemy of God (Satan) was the first to activate the opposite of love, and introduce discord into God’s creation.  Anyone who violates man’s freedom of choice, follows his lead, and the end result will be hate, evil and death.  As there is a law of gravity, there is also a law of liberty (freedom of choice); as well as many other laws coming down to man from creation.  When these laws are violated, people get hurt; and the laws remain steadfast for whoever wants to be hurt by violating them.

 The principles and laws of our Creator stand supreme, and should be obeyed by all: for they serve as protective barriers for man.  However, because of choice, man may choose to disobey them. This disobedience leads to a quality of life where hate, evil and death reigns.  To have man remain in such squalor is not love: therefore, the only merciful thing the God of love can do for them, is to destroy them, and rid the earth of lawlessness and the lawless.

Don’t take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up. God’s standard (laws) is a fence to protect man from falling into lawlessness. It should, and must, and will remain up.

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