Freedom Is Scary For Some, But Not For God & His People
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<Joshua said to the Israelites,>”But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”’ (Joshua 24:15)
Freedom is scary to many people; there are those who fear ‘wrong-think’, especially in today’s media and government. We have Congressmen who espouse subjective limits to our freedom of speech, to tailor what we should think and believe. There is a fear that knowledge of facts will derail the perception of feelings, that Truth within God’s Word will supersede the subjective ‘truth’ of self. It is so much a fear by the secular worldview that other nations (including the US through the evolving definitions of ‘hate speech’) suppress free will and with it, free speech, so as to have everyone be of ‘one thought’, leading to a dystopic future of despair as one cannot express their individual thoughts without punishment.
God has no such fear! He is perfectly assured His plan is superior, but we have the free will to challenge Him, to see if there is a ‘better path’. Joshua recognized this; that there were those among him that there were people among the tribes who did not worship God but another (false) entity (despite being a generation beyond the one who saw and heard God firsthand during the Exodus, while on the run and upon the mountain Moses climbed, and they themselves saw a ‘Christophany’ or Old Testament appearance of Jesus in Joshua 5:13-6:5).
God is not deterred by those who practice other religions, like Hindu, Islam, Shinto, and others. God detests these other false gods, but He is not intimidated by them. Joshua’s message was clear, one is not forced to accept God for who He is; you have free will to choose who and how your worship.
The Lord fully expects there will be people who will believe they have found a ‘better way’ and not accept Him; others will realize only His way is the right way and will follow Him and His son, Jesus. He does not take away free will, but He will not remove the consequences of having free will, either. Choices made outside of His precepts through His Word have consequences that may occur during our mortal life or in eternity.
Abusing drugs or alcohol, for example, has effects physically and mentally in the mortal life of an addict, and if they do not repent upon death condemn themselves to an eternity of separation from God and others in Hell, and more permanently the Lake of Fire. The consequences of not following Jesus into repentance and salvation is to lose the blessings the Lord provides, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and eternally the same fate as the addict.
If there is no free will, there is no choice. If God were to force everyone to worship Him, why would we need a Savior? We need Jesus and His Gospel in order to make an educated choice; choose our God who created us in Truth and loves us so overwhelmingly that He sacrificed His own Son, or choose a ‘god’ based on the lies of feelings. God has no limits to our freedom of our thoughts, our speech, and our choices – even if they are against Him. God has no fear of these, as He is who He is and no one can diminish Him or His glory!
For me and my house, we choose free will, freedom to speak and freedom to choose – and we freely choose to follow our Lord, Jesus Christ!
