God Gave Us
Free Will Because He Wants a Relationship With Us
God made
mankind in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). One important aspect of that is that we
are personal beings who possess a will. God Himself has a will, and He created
us with the capacity to make genuine choices. That matters because God desires
a genuine relationship with us.
A computer
can be programmed to say, "I love you," but it doesn't actually love.
It simply does what it was programmed to do. God didn't create us that way. He
didn't want humanity to be a collection of pre-programmed creatures who could
do nothing except obey. He wanted us to be capable of knowing Him, trusting
Him, choosing Him, and loving Him.
But giving
humanity genuine freedom carried risk. If we have the ability to freely love
God, we also have the ability to reject Him. And that's exactly what happened.
God Allowed
the Fall-But He Wasn't Surprised by It
God could
have prevented Satan from tempting Eve. He could have stopped Adam and Eve from
eating the forbidden fruit. He could have intervened. But in His sovereignty,
He allowed them to exercise the freedom He had given them. And God already knew
what would happen.
The Fall was
not an unexpected disaster that forced God to come up with a backup plan. God's
plan of redemption existed before the foundation of the world. Paul writes in
Ephesians 1:4-6: "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to
be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to
sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the
praise of his glorious grace."
Think about
that. Before creation, God already had redemption in mind. Before Adam sinned,
God knew. Before Satan tempted Eve, God knew. Before humanity experienced the
consequences of sin, God knew. And before the cross, God knew.
The Fall did
not catch God off guard. He knew that giving humanity free will carried risk,
and He already had a plan to redeem fallen humanity through Jesus Christ.
Sin Brought
Shame, Fear, and Hiding
Genesis 2:25
tells us that Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame. Then came Genesis 3.
After they disobeyed God, we read: "Then the eyes of both of them were
opened, and they realized that they were naked."
Their
physical condition hadn't changed. Their spiritual condition had. Suddenly,
they experienced shame. They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. Then,
when they heard God in the garden, they hid.
God called
out: "Where are you?" Of course, God knew where they were. He wasn't
asking because He needed information. He was calling them out of hiding.
Then God
asked Adam: "Who told you that you were naked?" God already knew the
answer. But He wanted Adam to think about what had happened. Why was Adam
suddenly ashamed? Why was he afraid? Why was he hiding? What had changed? The answer
was sin.
Before the
Fall, nakedness was accompanied by innocence and no shame. After the Fall, sin
brought shame, fear, alienation, and hiding. And yet, even in this darkest
moment, something remarkable happens: God comes looking for them. They ran from
God. God pursued them. They hid. God called. They sinned. God began dealing
with the consequences while simultaneously unfolding His redemptive purpose.
Our Need Can
Become an Opportunity to Experience God's Love
This is where
I believe we can begin to see something beautiful about God's dealings with us.
We can know intellectually that God is merciful. But there is a difference
between knowing that God is merciful and experiencing His mercy.
We can be
told that God is our helper. But when we're helpless and cry out to Him, we
discover what His help means. We can be told that God is our refuge. But when
we're afraid and run to Him, we experience Him as our refuge. We can be told
that God is gracious. But when we realize that we have nothing to offer Him,
His grace becomes incredibly precious. We can be told that God forgives. But
when we recognize our own sin and receive His forgiveness, we discover
something about His heart that we could never understand merely as an abstract
concept.
This is one
reason the circumstances of a fallen world can become opportunities for us to
discover the depths of God's love. Pain. Heartache. Troubles. Trials.
Afflictions. Failure. Weakness. Need. None of these things are good in
themselves. But God is so sovereign and so good that He can use even these
things to draw us toward Himself and reveal His character to us.
He can show
us mercy. He can heal. He can deliver. He can rescue. He can help. He can give
grace in our time of need. And when we experience His love, something happens:
We love Him more.
John says:
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 God's love comes
first. We experience it. We respond to it. And our relationship with Him
deepens.
God Can Turn
a Negative Into a Positive
One of the
most encouraging truths in Scripture is that God can take something genuinely
negative and bring something genuinely good out of it. Joseph expressed this
beautifully when he told his brothers: "You intended to harm me, but God
intended it for good." Genesis 50:20
The ultimate
example, of course, is the cross. The crucifixion was an act of terrible
injustice and evil. Jesus, the innocent Son of God, was rejected and put to
death. Yet God used that very event to accomplish the salvation of the world.
What appeared to be defeat became victory. What appeared to be tragedy became
redemption. What appeared to be Satan's triumph became God's triumph.
This is the
kind of God we serve. He can turn a negative into a positive. That doesn't mean
everything that happens to us is good. It means that God is so powerful and so
sovereign that the things that are not good cannot prevent Him from
accomplishing His good purposes.
That's why
Romans 8:28 is such a powerful promise: "We know that in all things God
works for the good of those who love him." Paul doesn't say that
everything that happens is good. He says that God works in all things for good.
The negative does not get the final word. God does.
Grace Means
God Gets the Glory
And this is
why salvation is by grace. Paul says: "It is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by
works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9
We cannot
save ourselves. We don't earn God's love. We don't rescue ourselves from sin.
God does it. He gives us grace. He gives us forgiveness. He gives us salvation.
He gives us adoption. And because it is His work, the glory belongs to Him.
Ephesians 1
says that God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ "to the
praise of his glorious grace." Think about the extraordinary exchange
taking place. We bring our sin, weakness, failure, and need. He gives us mercy,
grace, forgiveness, redemption, adoption, and life.
What a great
deal! We get to be loved. We get to be saved. We get to experience His goodness.
And He gets the glory.
From Him,
Through Him, and To Him
This brings
us to Paul's magnificent conclusion in Romans 11:36: "For from him and
through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."
Everything
ultimately points back to God. Our salvation is from Him. Our salvation is
accomplished through Him. And everything ultimately returns to Him in glory.
God's love is
the beginning. God's grace is the means. God's redemption is the result. And
God's glory is the ultimate purpose.
What a Great
God
When we step
back and look at the whole story, we see something astonishing. God created us
in His image. He gave us free will so that genuine love and relationship would
be possible. He knew that freedom carried risk. He knew the Fall would happen.
And yet, before the foundation of the world, He already had a plan to redeem us
through Christ.
When humanity
fell, God came looking. When we were ashamed, He showed mercy. When we were
guilty, He offered forgiveness. When we were helpless, He gave grace. When we
were lost, He came to rescue us. And when we encounter suffering and
difficulty, He can take even those things and work them together for good.
Why? Because
God is love. He loves to show His love. He wants us to know His love. He wants
us to experience His mercy. He wants us to receive His grace. And He wants us
to love Him in return. The God who created us for relationship with Himself has
made a way for fallen humanity to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ.
So yes, the
world we live in is fallen. Yes, sin has brought pain, shame, suffering, and
death. But sin does not have the final word. Suffering does not have the final
word. Satan does not have the final word. Death does not have the final word.
God does.
And His final
word is redemption. His final word is grace. His final word is love. And when
everything is finally brought to its appointed conclusion, we will discover
that it was all—from Him, through Him, and to Him.
"To him
be the glory forever. Amen."
What a great
God. What a great salvation. What a great love.
Attribution notice: Scripture take from the Holy Bible NIV, copyright Zondervan, used by permission. Image generated using AI. This article was written by Len Lacroix with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools.
Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Him. Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?
“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15). He preached that we must repent and believe.
Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?" ______________________________________
Len Lacroix is the founder of Doulos Missions International. He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission. www.dmiworld.org. 
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