God's Love
& Our Free Choice
Part 3

God desires to build a perfect family, one founded on love. He did not create us to be prisoners of His will; instead, He gave us the gift of free choice. In doing so, God used Satan as the instrument to present us with that choice. Tragically, humanity chose independence—turning away from God’s light and following Satan into darkness.

Note: I believe we have free choice, not free will, because in the grand scheme of things, we are ultimately bound to one of two paths: the light of God or the darkness where Satan reigns. While we cannot assert our own will in the end, we are given free choice during our time on earth. However, if we are not walking by the Spirit, even our choices are subject to manipulation by Satan.

The moment we turned away from God, He placed a symbolic curtain and guards to prevent anyone from entering His presence. This was not to shut us out, but to protect us—His branches—who had become tainted by darkness and rebellion. Had we tried to enter His presence in that state, we would have perished permanently.

Severed from the source of life, the branches could no longer bear fruit. As we’ve discussed, God’s branches are meant to bear His fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These fruits are the evidence of life in Him. But when we were cut off from that source, the Spirit within us died, and all that remained was our flesh. In that condition, we began to produce the works of the flesh: adultery, fornication, impurity, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, heresy, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelry, and the like. These became the unmistakable signs of a cancer leading to death.

Left with a void, we sought to fill it in the dark world, surrounded by Satan’s lies and schemes. But this void could never truly be filled by anything other than God.

God created us in His image, giving us the capacity to love and think. But without Him, we cannot do these things rightly. Without the guidance of the Spirit, the nurturing hands of the Father, and the leadership of Jesus, our attempts to love and think are distorted by our sin nature. While we may produce glimpses of God’s fruit, it is tainted and rotted by our sinful nature. The only reason we can bear any fruit at all is because of the measure of faith God has placed within each of us. This measure of faith is God’s conscience within us, a reminder of where we came from and the source of all true goodness.

We became branches, withering under the weight of our sinful nature—lost, blind, orphaned from our Father, and carrying the sentence of death upon us.

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"Those who believe in Jesus' name are given the right to become children of God."