Choose You Today

March 18, 2022

Faithful you are. And all your promises are yes and amen! Thank you Yahweh for another day – another day to spend with you, to do what you’ve called. To live. Thank you for your purpose in my life, for watching over me and your word. Thank you for choosing to save me, for dying that I might have a life. Probably weird to say “might” but the truth is, you died to save me, but I still need to choose you so I would have that gift. Thank you for giving us the autonomy to choose. That in itself is a gift, but one I want to offer back to you because your choices are infinitely better than mine. Help me to choose wisely each day, choose the God thing not just the good thing. It feels weird to think of choice as a promise, but just as he promised he would never leave us, he has promised that he would not force us. Guide us, yes. Give us options? Absolutely. But you won’t force us to choose him.

Deuteronomy 30:15&19 – Today I offer you life and prosperity or death and destruction. I call on heaven and earth as witnesses today that I have offered your life or death, blessings or curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants will live. 

Doesn’t sound like a promise does it? Being honest, it sounds like a threat. It’s me or you’re dead (dum, dum, dum, dum). But it’s actually a statement of fact, not a threat: one that Adam and Eve found out first hand. Yahweh desires that you live with him forever. He went to great lengths to do that and then humbled himself (like what?!! You’re God!!) and said, “What do you want to do? Yes I desire you, but I don’t want an unwilling heart. Yes, I can make you or trick you, but I don’t want your love that way, because it wouldn’t be love.” Yahweh knows what would happen no matter what choice we make but still allows us to choose.

Satan is NOT Humble

Satan is not that humble. Definitely the father of pride. He would like, cheat, trick and entice us to choose death. He would wrap it up in pretty paper so that we are blinded from what we are truly getting. If he was able to, he would take away our power to choose and that’s why drugs and excessive alcohol are some of his favourite weapons: they lower our ability to make God choices. 

But that’s not Yahweh. He puts all the cards on the table, face up. He says this is what will happen if you choose this, this is what will happen if you choose that. Each card is a different way of choosing him or choosing Satan. 

Ephesians 2:8-9 – God same to you through faith as an act of kindness. You had nothing to do with it. Being saved is a gift from God. It’s not the result of anything you’ve done, so no one can brag about it. 

It is a gift. He offers our salvation and his love truly. Now this is where I believe I’ve seen some conjecture that worries me: that God doesn’t give us free will or a choice (Confession: I’m having difficulty expressing what I’m seeing). That part that says “not of yourselves” essentially takes away our freewill. God says that he will have mercy and who will have mercy. Also…

John 6:44 – No one can come to me, unless the father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

But the clue is in the word used. He didn’t say, “Who sent me forces him,” or “demands that,” it says draw. To “draw” by inward power, lead, impel, to attract. We have to remember that Yahweh is spirit and operates on that plane. In a physical context, the word can be used instead to mean, “to drag” which does imply force, but Yahweh is spirit. And if he is lifted up, he will draw all men to him (John 12:32). He has given to every man an unction (btw, I love that word) of the Holy Spirit so that we would know all things!(1 John 2:20). 

He lays all the cards on the table. We know what would be the result of every choice we make and then he asks us to choose. Choose  life or death. He will make his case, he will show us the path that leads  to him and ask us to choose. 

Joshua 24:15 – But if you don’t want to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Even if you choose the gods your ancestor served on the other side of the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites and whose land you live, my family and I will still serve the Lord.  

This is not a straightforward promise like most of his promises are. This promise is given as a gift. It’s one we have to accept. But once accepted, a whole lot of other promises are activated: rest, peace, provision. The best way to say it is that this promise of choice is implied throughout scripture. He becomes for us to come up to him and rest. Search for him and we will find him. Trust him and he will provide. The promise of our ability to choose is built into every promise he has made. But when we choose him, we also choose to allow him to order our steps. We are choosing to let him guide us. We are choosing him – who created us and knows what is best for us. 

SIDEBAR: Context is truly important. The author that truly had me puzzled regarding his statement that we don’t have free will, quoted the scriptures out of  context. When we choose Yahweh, we also choose to surrender our will to him. But the writer kept applying the “after” scriptures to the “before” context. I am not claiming to know more than others, but I do pray for understanding daily. For your guidance everyday and that is me surrendering my will to you.  And he will guide me into all truth. I will trust you to lead. I make the choice to trust you and to understand that your promises are you showing us who you are and encouraging, imploring, pleading even for us to come to you, so that we will have life eternally, abundantly with you. 

Thank you for this gift that wraps all your promises inside. I’m choosing not just to accept, but I open it and jump in. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for freely giving. Thank you for loving me. 

I Choose You – Brandon Camphor + One Way

Of Yahweh’s Promises Playlist

Today is leg day at the gym. I love leg and back days. Those days I feel like Hulk (singing: move every mountain and trample any building). On chest and shoulder days? I feel so human. Sigh. I don’t want to have muscles like Hulk though. Just want to feel like I do. Lol. 

Draw Near

Draw near to the throne of Grace.

Hebrews 4:16 – So we can go confidently to the throne of God’s kindness to receive mercy and find kindness, which will help us at the right time. 

Other translations used the word “draw near.” The Greek word means “to approach, to draw near, to consent).

And this is a whole truth, Yahweh doesn’t desire a forced relationship with us. He wants us to consent to this relationship, he wants us to come close. He did everything he could to ensure that we had a choice.  So we can choose to stay or choose to go. But in choosing to stay, it’s similar to the servant who pierced his ear to show dedication and love to his master. It’s why we choose his will over ours. We show our love and dedication to him because he is our God, he is our master. And he wants what is best for us. That’s his divinity at work. Our humanity wants to insist that he’s forcing us because that’s what human masters do. But Yahweh is not like man. He’s God, who desires relationship with us. It cannot be forced because that’s the difference between a slave and a servant.