Two Decisions
Dear reader, let me have two minutes of your attention. I would like to talk about free will.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/], free will is “the ability to decide what to do independently of any outside influence”. The human being received the gift — and the responsibility — to choose. Although we make decisions on a daily basis, I dare to say that only two decisions matter to the human being.
The first one was given to us in the garden of Eden. The male and female, He created, in His own image (Genesis 1:27). Both of them God put in the garden to take care of it (Genesis 2:15) and gave them His first commandment: humans were told to eat freely from all the trees in Eden, but one. The Bible doesn’t mention the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as the only one “pleasing to the eye” — on the contrary, all of the trees were (Genesis 2:9). That prohibition was meant to give us a choice: to love Him and to obey Him because we wanted, not because we didn’t have any options left. Nevertheless, we chose not to love God; we turned our backs to Him; we despised the garden and picked the thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18). The first decision condemned us to death and hell (Genesis 3:19; Romans 3: 23; Romans 6:23).
Since then, no choice was available to us, for we had being convicted.
The second choice was given to us by the same God, 2,000 years ago. He decided to send to Earth his only Son, Jesus. Christ came to teach us about God’s will — He who now presented Himself as a Father — and to give us a second choice: to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the men. This choice is meant to cancel the punishment of our first crime — should we believe in Jesus, the death he died becomes the price we should have paid, realeasing us. The second decision provides us with redemption.
Since then, this choise has been avaliable to us, for we only have to confess with our mouths Jesus as Lord and believe in Him to be saved. (Acts 16:31; Romans 10:9).
Nonetheless, the human being chose and keeps choosing to repeat the same mistake made in Eden — not to love God; turn our backs to him; despise his Son. We repeat the first crime when we pretend that the second choice has not been given to us. We repeat the first crime when we ignore the Savior’s call to give our lives to Him. We repeat the first crime even thought we often go to churches but refuse to live a true life of repentance before His Presence.
The Father sent to Earth his only Son so that we could be called His adopted sons and daughters (1 John 3:1; Ephesians 1:5). More than a choise, it has been offered us an invitation. Silence or perhaps are not valid responses (John 3:18).
To conclude, I make the words written in Deuteronomy 30:19 my own: “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live”.