God Is Pro Choice

I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t God be against abortion and be pro-life? I wasn’t necessarily talking about abortion, but instead life in general. My passages today comes from the end of Deuteronomy where Moses is giving his final sermon complete with the blessing of God for doing what is right and his curses for doing the wrong thing.

“Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.” Deuteronomy 30:15-16

A couple of verses later Moses restates the choice again. “Today I have given the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” 19-20

Would you not agree a lot is packed in these verses? And they are found in the Old Testament. The point I see here is that God does not force himself on us. He does not push all evil away from us because we are his followers. He gives us the wonderful gift of choice. All day long we have to choose something. We have to choose how we will react when the obnoxious drive behind us tailgates us (I really hate that) or when he cuts us off. What about the co-worker who gossips about me in the office? Do I retaliate and gossip about him or her? We have to make choices from our temper to alcohol to what we do with our money and free time.

As you can see the list could go on for some time. What can make our choice easier is knowing what the Lord wants us to do. In the verses above it’s packed full of the word choice and the word obey. God wants us to make choices that are obedient to his Word. It definitely isn’t easy, but in the long and short run it will be for our benefit.

I’ve determined there are two ways that people learn and grow in life. They either choose to do the right thing because they know it’s pleasing to the Lord or they learn thru the school of hard knocks. They just don’t believe the choice before them will lead to the same consequence that it did for others and so they go for it and then act surprised when it gives the same negative result it always does. Now the hard knocks can be someone else’s and that is how I chose to go thru my youth. I witnessed the mistakes of my older brother and saw that I didn’t want to go down that path.

I pray for you all today that you would choose life. God wants to bless you and your obedience to Him. But if you mess up, don’t get discouraged, confess and make the right choice next time. If you keep repeating the same poor choice, perhaps you need some accountability in that area.
God Bless you all and have a great week. Thanks for the opportunity you give me to share with you all.

Take Away
1. Do you have to experience everything yourself to learn life’s lessons?
2. Do you keep repeating the same mistakes?
3. Will you commit today to choosing God’s ways? (See Isaiah 55:8-10)