21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Prov 5:21-23 (KJV)
Choices. Our lives are filed with choices. What to wear, what to watch, what to eat, where to go, who to speak to, how to talk. On and on our choices parade before us in a never ending chance to make good, and bad choices. From a human perspective we can never truly know what caused one individual to make any of the choices he or she made, but God knows. The scary part here is even when we have fooled everyone around us (sometimes including ourselves) as to the reasons we did what we did, God still knows. God sees everything we try to hide. God understands the truth behind all our actions. This is at once a concerning and a comforting thought.
This is concerning because the ‘white lies’ we tell to get out of something, or the false reasons we use to cover up a failing are seen right through by our Father in heaven. He knows we weren’t really sick when we called work to tell them we wouldn’t be coming in today. He knows we put the larger piece of left over pie in the back of the refrigerator under the beans nobody likes so we could save it for ourselves.
This is of great comfort to us because even when we fail to resist the temptation to go to work and lie about why we couldn’t He forgives us. When we eat that third piece of pie we really shouldn’t eat after having hidden it from everyone else in the house, He still wants to talk with us and hug us. He is bigger than our failings and larger than the most despicable thing we ever did. He cares so much for us that He divested Himself of His glory and came down to earth to live as a man, the final sin offering so we could be with Him forever if we will only accept His love.
God is not a Pharisee, but he does have rules. He gave us our free will knowing Adam and Eve would make that first wrong choice condemning us to death under His law, but He also gave us His son Jesus to erase that same condemnation if we make another choice. We are told Original Sin entered into the world in the beginning and Man is now not capable of doing good, but at the end of the sixth day before Man had the chance to screw it up God saw all that He had made and pronounced it ‘…very good.’ (Gen 1:31). So, before there was Original Sin, there was Original Good. Adam and Eve entered all mankind under the rules of Good and Evil when they made a choice. Jesus Christ allows us to reenter the world of Original Good by another choice. While the most probing question this presents is ‘What will you choose?’ I’d like to offer a second question that should lead to more study; ‘How is Jesus able to make this offer to us in the first place?’
15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Josh 24:15 (KJV)
