“If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (NIV) – Genesis 4:7
You may have experienced hearing a question from someone (usually a New Christian) why we were given free will if God has a plan which is unfolding day by day and if He wants us to follow His will. This question may have been followed by “If His plan is happening then isn’t this the same as controlling us?”
Why oh why are we given free will indeed? Believe it or not free will is a gift and God’s confidence in us.
Let’s say for example you are a computer program and God is your programmer. As a program, you were given the ability to calculate (think) and provide the necessary output (to do what you think is right). Whenever an input is given to you (let’s say you were placed in a certain situation), you are expected to provide an output for it (or respond according to it). This is God’s gift of FREE WILL. It is you knowing how to respond accordingly for a specific task no matter how difficult it is.
Now, let’s say as computer program you were infected by a virus. This, of course will keep you from functioning according to how you were programmed. At times you would stop working, and at times you would even stop delivering the right results. You will always have an ERROR which will later on render you useless. This is what sin does. It controls you to do what it desires for you to do. It stops you from thinking accordingly and delivering the right results.
God designed you for a purpose. He uniquely designed you with the ability to function well according to His plan. He didn’t place any strings on you so He can control you for His will. He made sure you can act accordingly to whatever troubles you faced as His plan unfolds. As for the virus, God made sure your system can be saved with Jesus Christ’s blood. The moment Christ was crucified, He had installed Himself in each of us thus cleansing us from sin and enabling our system to easily detect and delete what corrupts us.
When God created man, He gave him dominion over everything. However, because of sin, it limited man’s ability to even give the best they have like how Cain did with his offering and how he envied and killed his brother Abel.
It is in Christ alone that we are freed from sin’s control. It is in Christ that we were enabled to respond well again. It is in Christ that we once again have dominion over sin and all the things it uses to control us (emotions, our flesh and our circumstances). It is in Christ that we once again have the freedom to will ourselves against sin and to walk with Christ!
Live Your Life for God 