Why Do I Have A Choice?

Q

I have always been taught that God gives us freedom of choice because He wants us to be free to love Him or not love Him by choice. Therefore we are free to either sin or not sin. If that is true, then why can’t I choose NOT to have freedom of choice? I WANT to be a robot, loving God and not sinning continuously. I constantly sin…constantly. I am beset by a sinful addiction.

I pray to God, through Jesus, to keep the opportunity for sin away from me. I do not place myself in situations where I can sin, but the thoughts of my sin barage me constantly, 24 hours a day and seven days a week. This week some sins that I committed 25 years ago came back to haunt me. I confessed these sins to Jesus and repented many years ago but, even though He forgave me, He let me suffer punishment now. I understand that just because He forgave me didn’t mean that I would escape punishment. These were some very serious sins.

What I would like to know is that long before I committed these sins I would have gladly given up my freedom of choice and would like to have been an “android for Christ” (if such a thing would have been possible). You seem to be a very spiritually blessed person so maybe you could answer this for me.

A

The flaw in your theory is that while you have the choice not to love God, you don’t really have the choice not to sin.

And even if you choose to love Him, you can’t love Him the way He loves you.

As a result of the Fall, a defect was introduced into the Creation. It’s called the sin nature, and it makes it impossible for us to live up to God’s standard of righteousness and His level of love.

Those who are being honest with themselves realize this. They know that confession is a necessary daily activity even for born-again believers.

And while God paid the eternal penalty for our sins, He didn’t necessarily relieve us of their Earthly consequences. In fact, believers are actually more likely to be caught and punished for their sins than non-believers.

God saved us to demonstrate the incomparable riches of His grace, not to reward us for our efforts at righteousness. If you were created with no other choice than to please Him, you would be incapable of fulfilling His purpose for you.

The good news is that our life here constitutes a very small percentage of our eternal existence. Because you’ve chosen to let Him be your Savior, even in your fallen state, you’ve surmounted the only barrier that stood between you and an eternity of pleasing him.