Word a day (7): Isaiah 54:2

YOUR HOME... In the bible, the word home is used a fraction of the time in describing a dwelling place with walls a roof and a fireplace. I like to think of a house as a shell, the walls. A roof over your head. This house is important. What would a church be if they had no common place to fellowship. But I feel the "home" is the comfort that can be found within the walls. Another thing, a home is not confined to a shell. God wants us to bring that home-like feeling into the cities we live in. Our jobs, our family, and friends. That is why building relationships is the most effective way to bring out the Kingdom in this world. It is the words and actions of a friend that change someone's life, not a beaming in the back of the head by someone throwing judgment and accusations from people they don't even know. As followers of Christ, we are expected to be excepting and comforting, even if we don't understand. It was the example He gave us while here on earth. This is how we are to treat people. Treat them as if they were valued guests in your home, because that is who they actually are in God's eyes. We need to step back and look outside of ourselves, our own agenda's, our own ambitions. To welcome people into our home in the Father. 

A Pro-Choice God

As crazy as that may seem to you, our God is pro-choice. I don't mean this in a direct correlation with abortion, but choice as a whole. 

Many christians and non-christians alike struggle with this question: "If God knows all past, present, and future, what does my life on this earth matter?" The matter of predestination has confused theologians and laymen alike since the beginning. Some view God as a giant looking down on us, moving us around as he pleases. I want you take take a look at it this way. Take the creator of the game of chess and place him in a match with a newbie to the game. The creator not only knows the strategies in and out, he invented them. He knows the outcome of the game just by the first moves of the game. But here it is! The creator doesn't move the rookie's pieces around on the board, he just knows what will happen because of each of the moves. The rookie decides which route and strategy he will use. He can even impress the creator with a move and change how the creator will play out his next series of moves. 

So God, the creator of this world and of you and me, has given us free will. He gives us choice! Every move we make, God saw coming, but he doesn't control them. You choose to act on the calling of your life. You choose your job, your car, you choose even the person you marry. 

God gives us opportunities. He opens doors that will change and benefit our lives but we are the ones who have to choose to step through those doors. God's story is MASSIVE! It encompasses all past, present, and future, and here is the hook... it is being written even as you sit here and read this. Our supporting roles in this story of His are only as important as we let them be, and it all depends on what we choose to do with our lives on a day to day, hour by hour, minute by minute basis. 

God wants us to play important parts in His story. Every day He brings someone, something into out lives that are tied into the calling He wants us to grab hold of. If we grab hold... "good on ya'!" But if we don't, its not the end of the world. This is where God might change His strategy up a bit. God's plans and purposes don't fall apart because of one person's choice to turn the chance down to change the world, He simply opens that door for someone else. So choose to take hold of the calling, which in-turn, results in blessing. 

A Perfect example is in 1 Samuel 16. After being anointed as king of Israel, the very first one at that, Saul continually screws up and looses his throne. God told Samuel in verse 1, "You have mourned long enough for Saul. I have rejected him as King..."  God gave Saul a chance to justly rule His own people, the children of God, by simply following Him. Saul didn't fail through and through. There were times he did follow all of God's direction, and he was one of a hand full to be filled with his spirit mentioned in the Old Testament. But after making choice after choice that pulled him farther and farther from his calling. God soon after sends Samuel to anoint David. David wasn't perfect and we all know it, but he choose at the end of everything to return all glory to where it belonged. He lived within his calling and became known as "a man after God's own heart."

To understand God intends us to have choice, to live in free will whether it means with Him or without, we go back to the very beginning. God created all the universe from scratch. This means all was null and void. There was no good trees or bad trees. If God intended us to live as drones, to have no choice to follow him, then why would the tree of the knowledge of good and evil be planted? Why would He risk it? Take a man who finds a beautiful woman and instead of perusing her affection and love, he purchases a vile of potion that causes her to love him without thinking. Without her will. There is no real love there. How much more is the love that comes with time and passion and true devotion? This is why we are given free will. So that the love is real. It is everlasting. It is ours and His together.