Lesson

Today's message will be called

Freewill

In this day and age freewill is not believed to be true amongst many, some say that if God knows what we are going to do then it's not really our freewill but God controlling us. (Many say so to refuse responsibility and blame God for their bad deeds).

Let's talk about how completely untrue that is, and let's use one of the greatest examples of freewill to back it up.

Jonah 1:1- 3

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

This verse alone tells the entire message. basically God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry against it, as they were committing all kinds of sin.

Jonah doesn't want to, so he WILLINGLY tries to flee from the presence of the Lord, you can't flee from God; but that's a message for later, however Jonah out of his own freewill given to him by God CHOOSES to go against the very same God and not cry against Nineveh like He told him to.

We learn two things from this.

One:

Free will is very much true, if Jonah was being controlled by God like many say, then he would have never attempted to flee from the Lord.

If God was controlling Jonah He would have led him to Ninever right away, to cry against them, so they can repent of their sins.

However Jonah willingly disobeyed God, and tried to flee to Tarshish, If God was in control, I'm pretty sure He would have not let that happen.

Another proof of free will is that we as humans have our own thought process, we think about whatever we want to, whenever we want to, we think about bad things, horrible things, trechous things, we think of ourselves more than we do others, we think about what will make us happy but not what will please God.

We make our own choices:

We choose when to help and who to help, we choose who will be friends with, and we choose who we hate, we choose what to watch and we choose what to listen to. we have choices, and majority of the time they have absolutely nothing to do with God's plan for our lives.

If He were in total control of us, all our decisions would align with his plan for our lives, but because we have free will, we choose whether we want to follow God's plan, and we definitely choose whether we want to do our own thing.

Majority of the time despite God making it very clear that He has our best interests at heart, we still don't follow His plans for us.

And that can only be possible if we have free will, which we do and with all the evidences shown, it proves that we as humans have free will.

Two.

Without free will we would be robots.

We would think whatever God wants us to, we would do what God wants us to, we would say whatever God wants us to, there would be no such thing as sin, no such thing as pain, no such thing as war, in other words, no evil, all would be good, sunshine and rainbows.

No emotions, no thought process that isn't centered around God, no real LOVE.

we would be robots, thinking about the things we are programed to, saying the things we are programed to, and doing the things we are programed to.

Conclusion:

So we know that without free will, we will be robots with no real personality, we would have no emotions, and we would also not do evil, because God is all good, and we were programed by him.

So why did God not make us like that? Why did he decide to give us free will?

It's very simple.

LOVE, love is very important to God, Love is the reason why He sent His only begotten son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins, Love is the reason why we have the chance to receive eternal life.

If God had made us to be robots, there would be no need for Jesus's death and resurrection, but there would also be no real love.

Robots are hardwired a certain way sure, you can say why can't God just program us to love?

Because it still wouldn't be real love, real love comes through free will, because you don't feel obliged to love that person, you are not hardwired to love that person, you are not being forced to love that person, you are CHOOSING to love them.

God doesn't want to force us to worship Him, he doesn't want to force us to love Him, because then it wouldn't be real, so we have free will.

You may be still confused.

God is good, and God is love, He is the beginning of Love, He IS love, so the way God loves is the only true way to actually Love.

And he demonstrated this to us when he WILLINGLY sent his ONLY begotten son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins and  resurrect so that we could be able to receive not only forgiveness from God but eternal life.

THIS is love. God wasn't forced to send Jesus, no one controlled Him to do it, He did so out of His own FREEWILL.

And He grants us the very same freewill so that just as he willingly sent Jesus christ to die on the cross for our sins and resurrect three days later, and grant us everlasting life, we also have the FREEWILL to willingly accept Jesus into our lives as our Lord and personal saviour.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

God loves us out of his own freewill, so he also wants us to love Him out of our own freewill.

So yes, if you were ever curious, or confused, now you know, freewill is very much real, and you chose to read this, so I hope this has impacted your life, because it sure has impacted mine.

Have a blessed day.

God loves you.

Hadassah Smart.