Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.
1 Corinthians 7:37
God created each person on earth in His image, in His likeness. Part of that image is having a freewill. God has a freewill to where He could choose to do evil, but He never will do that. God loves righteousness and holiness and love. His perfect, infinite understanding of all things tells Him to exercise His will to the good of mankind, angels and even Himself. All things work together for good to those that love God, because God is working all things together for good. He’s a good God and created us in His image that we might know and understand Him. He gave us freewill so that we would be free to do good, to do holiness and righteousness, to manifest love.
The Scripture says that this man has power over his will. If he does, then all people do as well. Part of being a human being is that we have the power to originate choices and carry them out in our lives. God works in our lives by influence of love, not by forcing or causing people to do things. That’s why I respect God so much, is that He, in His perfect wisdom, has freely given us freewill. He wants us to know the joy of love, the joy of giving, the joy of laying down our lives for God and mankind. God has given us a free gift when He made us in His image. God will never violate our freewill. He will work to influence us to do good, but the choice is up to us. This is a choice that carries a heavy weight, because a wrong use of our wills will result in us being cast away forever in the lake of fire. God is working every day to prevent that from happening. He wants us to live forever with Him, in a love relationship of keeping His commandments of love.
I love being free to choose my destiny. God truly is good to put such power in our hands. Our eternity depends on what we choose in this life. God has given commandments to love Him and mankind. This is a reasonable, logical service He requires of us. To choose our own joy over the joy of God and others is selfishness, which is sin. Sin is an abuse of freewill. Sadly, most of the world has chosen to go the way of selfish sin. Yet, God is merciful to our iniquities and doesn’t immediately throw us away. He longsuffers with us, choosing to influence us to do the right thing.
God doesn’t beat people over the head with His commandments and we shouldn’t either. When I evangelize I share the good news of Christ with the world. If someone is adamant that they don’t want to hear it, then I move on to someone else. I’m working with God to influence through love and the Word of God. It’s not my place to try to live someone else’s life for them. We each have power over our own will. I hope my influence in Christ will inspire many others to go the way of love. That’s my prayer. After all, love should appeal to something deep down inside of all of us. It’s how we were created to live. Love is natural, sin is a violation of our nature. That’s why we feel guilty when we sin. Let’s all go forth, keeping God’s commandments which shows our love for Him! Let’s respect others freewill choices but yet strive to influence them with love and good works. One day soon Christ will judge the whole world in righteousness, asking if they used their God-given freewill for love. Most will be rejected, but to those few that love God, they will be rewarded with eternal life. Choose you this day who you will serve.