More Than a Choice

KeithTrumboBooks.com

???????????? Jesus loves you, accepts you, and provides you with the gifts listed in Galatians 5:22, 23 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). So, is that the full story? No, not exactly. Like a lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky, it's ironic to understand that His gifts can create tension in your life. Just like the tension between dogs and cats or cats and mice, the gifts He provides will create tension in your heart.

??????????? His gifts create tension between our self-focus and His love, joy and peace. Tension between the way He thinks, and the way we think. To embrace the tension, we need His help to accept Him as our 100% good, all-powerful Savior. Because we live in a world that rejects His goodness, we need His help to believe in His goodness.

??????????? Today, people define what it means to believe as accepting information. We believe when we accept a fact or issue. Yet, the Bible describes believing as more than agreeing with an issue. James 2:23, 24 tells us, "And the scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,' and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone."

In the Bible, to believe means we have a friendship with Jesus that impacts our choices. It's not just about our choices; it's about a friendship that impacts our choices. A friendship that leads us to understand more about our deepest motives and desires. Motives and desires that can be hidden from our sight.

??????????? People can accept the fact that Jesus lived and died, seek to make the right choices, yet not live a life based on a friendship with their Creator. A real relationship with Jesus is about more than the choices we make. If we simply focus on making the right choices, we will fail. We need to focus on asking for His help to receive the help He seeks to provide. We like to resist what He provides. So, we need His help to receive His help to deal with our stealthy, me-first, selfish heart that we are born with.

??????????? Jesus offers you the most beautiful relationship. You can ask for His help to trust Him, and He will give you the gifts you need to experience His goodness. You can then learn more about how His gifts work in your life as you read about His solutions in the Bible. Then, you can choose to follow His way of thinking and also receive the healing of forgiveness when you don't. The relationship He offers you can empower you to live a fulfilled and successful life—a successful life from His perspective, not ours.

??????????? Jesus' gifts will create tension in our hearts because we do not naturally think like He does. We like the selfish me-first heart we are born with. His gifts create conflict between His unselfish thinking and our self-centered thinking. However, as we believe by faith, we can choose to follow (believe) His way of thinking (based on His gifts) as we ask for His help to trust in Him (faith). He will not force us to follow His way of thinking like a robot. It's our choice. Yet, we cannot make choices that reflect His peace and goodness without His help. It's about much more than just making choices.

??????????? We need Jesus' help to trust in Him because trusting in Him means we accept Him as our 100% good, all-powerful Savior. Even if we think that Jesus is 95% good, that 5% can make us stumble. Stumble over our pride or ego. With so many unjust, unfair, prejudiced experiences we have in life, we can't accept Him as our 100% good, all-powerful Savior without His help.

??????????? Even though bad things happen in this world (because it is not operating as He designed), He can help us to get to know Him as our 100% good, all-powerful Savior who defines what is good. We will have difficulty remembering that He always wants what is best for us because the good things He wants for us do not always happen. We face a massive challenge as we live in a world that does not operate as He designed. We can assign the negative, bad things Satan unfolds in our lives as coming from God.

??????????? The solution is to believe by faith. The Bible reveals that you can understand and experience what is real and true about God. He is your 100% good, all-powerful Savior. Yet not everything that happens to you will reflect His goodness. That is why you need to ask for His help to trust in Him. Ask for His help to welcome His gifts. Then, ask for His help to follow the solutions in His Word. You can embrace the reality of Jesus' love and live knowing that He is your 100% good, all-powerful Savior, even though everything that happens to you will not reflect His goodness.