Freedom of Choice

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 
(1 Cor 6:19-20)

 

We are called to be good stewards of what God gives us whether it is our money, fame, out talents, our voice, our bodies. I’ll be the first to admit I have things that need to change. God doesn’t make rules to be a killjoy. He makes them so we can have life and have it more abundantly.

When we don’t take proper care of what we have we suffer consequences. When we smoke, abuse food, abuse alcohol, don’t exercise, and eat horrible things we suffer diabetes, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure, depression, heart attack, and shorten our lives. We end up having to take medicines with horrible consequences on other parts of our bodies and so on. When we step out of God’s design for sex we suffer s.t.ds, self-esteem issues, teen pregnancy, single parenting, sexual abuse, abortion, poverty, messed up thinking, confusion over our own sexuality and more. When we gossip we destroy lives (God help me with this one…so easy to break this rule). When we are irresponsible with money we end up drowning in debt which leads to stress, envy, jealousy, theft, crime, health problems, mental problems etc. God tells us not to envy, covet or be jealous because it takes our focus off of loving and puts it on selfishness. It leads to misery, depression, greed, more lust, bigger theft, and then we hurt people to get what we want. Drug addiction, same thing…look where that leads! People steal from their own families, abuse themselves and others, end up in jail and often dead. It ruins their health, their mind, their relationships, their families.

It’s the same no matter what rule we break. Adam and Eve were the first to break the rules by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden. They had ONE rule and broke it, leaving all mankind to pay the penalty even today – eternal separation from God apart from Christ (whom God provided to save us from ourselves and eternal death).

Our choices don’t just affect us, they affect everyone our lives come in contact with every day. They affect our children, their children, our friends, our marriages, our coworkers, etc. This is why God who is perfect and all wise makes rules. He makes them to protect us that we might have life more abundantly, not to suck the fun out of life. He makes them to keep us free not to imprison us. We imprison ourselves when we do our own thing. The one who wants to trap us, imprison us, kill us. He tells us that fun means you have to break God’s rules. He is a LIAR! Just look at history for proof.

My choices every day largely impact how difficult or abundant my life will be. We all have the same choices to make. The difference between a life of abundance and a life of struggle are up to each of us. We can’t control some things but we can control how we respond to them. The things we can control are the decisions we make. We really do have more power than we give ourselves credit for . God given power…the freedom to choose wisely.