God won't make a choice for you
If God intended to manipulate our choices, why did He send His Son to die a brutal, horrific, humiliating death?
If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!) (Romans 4:14-15)
I don’t like being manipulated. Have I got any brothers and sisters out there who escaped a legalistic traditional church environment?
That being said, I’m thankful for that experience as a child. God used it to install an unshakable faith in His Word in me, because even in elementary school I questioned why the church demanded obedience to a set of rules that appeared nowhere in Scripture. (Maybe one day we’ll do a series about this whole “faith deconstruction” movement we’re seeing among young Christians today.)
Manipulation tactics get under my skin in every situation, not just in faith systems. Manipulative relationships make me angry. Anyone who tries to get what they want by coercing or gas lighting basically triggers me (for reasons we don’t have time to get into). Suffice it to say, if I get the sense that a relationship is built around a foundation of control, I won’t stick around.
I don’t like feeling as though I’m someone’s puppet. I guess if I’m going to make decisions about life, I’d rather they be my own choices rather than someone else’s. If I’m going to face consequences, I’d rather they be consequences I earn instead of consequences that rightly belong to someone else. But that may just be me and my stubborn Scottish attitude.
If you don’t know God, I guess it might be easy to see Him as some all-powerful puppeteer in the sky, pulling our strings just to see us dance and jump. If you didn’t know what the Bible says, it would be easy to imagine that God uses the events in our lives to manipulate our choices, to place us in a state of duress so that we are forced to do what He says.
But, the truth is, if God worked that way, it would eliminate the need for Him to send Jesus to begin with. If God intended to manipulate our choices, why did He send His Son to die a brutal, horrific, humiliating death?
If God required us to obey the law in order to be saved, He would be setting an impossible standard for us to achieve. Like today’s passage says: the only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!
We aren’t capable of perfect adherence to the law, because we aren’t capable of perfection. That’s actually the point of the law in the first place. The law exists to show us that we need a Savior!
God has done everything to make it possible for us to have a future with Him, a good future full of good things. And He doesn’t ask us to follow a rule book. He just asks that we believe He paid our admission.
But He asks.
The choice is yours. The story of the Bible has always been about a choice between two options: Following God or following yourself. Going God’s way or going your own way.
You have a choice. There are only two options, but you get to choose whichever one works for you. God won’t force you to choose Him. What He wants from us is a relationship, and manipulating us into that choice negates the relationship aspect.
Regardless, your future is legitimately in your hands. Choose your own way or choose God’s way.
He won’t make the choice for you. But don’t be misled about the consequences of the choice you make. The consequences are drastically different, so be sure you understand what you’re signing up for before you decide.
Questions for Reflection
How does it make you feel when someone else tries to manipulate your decisions?
What does it mean that your future is in your own hands?
Why do you think providing us with a choice is so important to God?
Weekly Memory Verse
