Red Pill, Blue Bill - You Decide...


Free will is a gift from God. Everyday every single person on the planet makes choices. Do you want toast or cereal for breakfast? Do you catch up on email now, later or never and say it was lost in cyber-space? Do you speed on the way to work, or not? Do you invite your married co-worker you’ve been flirting to lunch? Do you accept a co-worker’s invitation to lunch? Do you look at porn? Do you honor your spouse with kind words even though they forgot to pick up milk? Do you give a 10% tithe, or skim off the top for the designer handbag you’ve been wanting? Do you believe God and trust in him, or do you scheme and plan yourself?

On Friday, I wrote a post about forced intimacy isn’t intimacy. God wants a relationship with us - that’s a given. He loved us even though we were separated from him because of a choice the first humans made, so God created a way through the death of his son, Jesus. The way to salvation is available but like the old adage, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink - the choice to accept salvation is entirely up to each individual. God wants us to choose to have a relationship with him; he won’t force or coerce us.

This past week I was having a conversation with an unbelieving friend (as of yet). It’s frustrating to watch someone on the verge of salvation but reject it because he has a pre-conceived notion it has to be an emotional decision. It can be emotional, yes but faith doesn’t operate on feeling. Faith is action and it is the currency of the kingdom of God. It’s not blind, ignorant faith, either. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope and certain of what we do not see.”

My friend says to me, “I don’t feel it like you do.” The truth is, often I don’t feel anything but I walk in faith and by the Spirit. Sure, I love the feeling but Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Heart = mind, will & emotions) The verse is saying that our emotions are fickle and can’t be trusted. One moment we are happy, and another moment we are sad – it can depend on if we are hungry, hormonal or stressed. Simply put, there are too many variables to count on the heart to make a good decision. Sometimes, you have to choose and walk, by faith, in that direction.

Joshua 24:15, “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

We all serve someone or something. I serve the Most High God; others serve Allah, or education, or money or physical appearance or themselves. Without a doubt, the world and everyone in it needs help. We need saving. Who is going to be your Saviour?

If you have never made a choice to receive the gift of salvation provided by Jesus’ sacrifice and you want to do it now, there is one question to ask yourself:

Do you believe Jesus is the son of God, who died and paid for your sin (past and future) so you could be reconciled to God and be in a relationship with him?

If you answer yes, then make a verbal declaration: I believe Jesus is the Son of God and died for my sins. I believe he rose again, victorious over the evil one and through faith, I believe I am reconciled to God and received into the kingdom of God. I no longer belong to the kingdom of this world. I am a new creation free, from condemnation from this moment forth.

And all the witnesses in heaven said, “Amen.”

If you made a declaration, tell someone. I’d love to hear about it too. Blessings.

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