By Choice

Choices made in the past have given us the gift of human life. What can we learn from these choices that will give us direction toward everlasting life?

As we grow up, we learn about and are shaped by the world around us. It is what we know. It is what seems normal to us.

I remember well a time in my childhood when my mother said to me, “This world is not God’s world. God’s Kingdom is going to come in the future, but at this time we live in a world [society] that is not of God’s making.”

My young mind struggled with this concept. The world I was born into was the only one I could see, hear, touch—take in through my human senses. How could it be wrong? How could it be replaced by another way that I could not see with my human senses?

Back to the beginning and forward to the future

In those early years my mother introduced me to a book that is different from any other. It explains what happened before I existed, and it tells of things that will occur in the future, on beyond my lifetime. This book is the Bible.

More than 60 years later, I continue to learn from the Bible. Through God’s Spirit and guidance, this present world I live in is not the only world I see.

Choices

Our lives are profoundly affected by others’ choices. But ultimately our own choices shape our future.

Before you and I were born, there were choices made by others that gave us physical life. At our birth we entered into this world—this society.

Consider:

• Who made the choice that gave us life?
• Whose concepts framed the society in which we live?
• What choice will we make?

The first choice

The first choice was a deliberate choice—not of time and chance or of selfish intent.

God determined long ago to create humans. Genesis 1:1-25 reveals God, as a responsible parent, creating an environment that would shelter and nourish the physical son and daughter He was about to bring into being.

But God’s purpose for this air-breathing son and daughter was much greater than just giving them a temporary existence.

Genesis 1:26 reveals, “God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’”

God purposely created mankind in His image and after His likeness. This decision gave mankind the incredible human potential to become children of God (1 John 3:1-2).

God also created mankind with free moral agency—the ability to make choices.

Second choice

God taught Adam and Eve as a loving parent teaches his children, trying to guide them to the choice that would be best for them. They had to choose between two ways of life:

• The tree of life: choosing to do what God says is good, as well as not do what God says is evil. This way leads to eternal life.
• The tree of the knowledge of good and evil: choosing to decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. This way leads to eternal death.

Genesis 3 tells us that Adam and Eve chose to listen to a being who was not their Creator. They chose to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil. Their choice took them out of the garden and away from God’s direction.

Thus, mankind’s history began and a society formed where there is good and there are all kinds of evil. This is what my mother was trying to explain to me so many years ago when she said, “This is not God’s world.”

God’s purpose for humanity

Human life began when a loving God created a man and a woman and gave them the ability to have children. God purposed to shape and mold us until our character “looks” like His. His intention has always been to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10).

God even created a “rescue plan” to save mankind from the penalty of our wrong choices—sins (John 3:16).

As it turns out, we all need that rescue plan for us to have any hope of receiving “everlasting life.”

Our choice

When I was 18, I began to realize that the following scriptures were talking personally to me:

• “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23).
• “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
• “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
• “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6).

God was granting me awareness. He was pricking my conscience because He was offering me the choice of the way to everlasting life.

God’s rescue plan is an awesome gift that He desires for all mankind. It is a way of living that enables us through His Spirit to listen, learn and live our lives in obedience to Him, by choice.

Andrea West lives in Lewisville, Texas, with her husband, Roger. They attend the Fort Worth, Texas, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.