God is Pro-Choice

Did you know that God is pro-choice?*

Now, before you report me to my pastor and burn me at the stake for heresy, allow me to explain.

When you purchase a product, you get the manufacturer's instructions on how to keep that product in tip-top shape and get the most use out of it. The manufacturer gets to decide, according to his or her  design, how to best care for that product. The consumer purchases that product knowing this is true, and a prudent consumer will read and follow the instructions. However, once it belongs to you, you, the consumer, have the choice to follow those instructions or not. If you take care of that product according to those instructions, it should work well for the purposes for which it was made. If you use it as instructed and it doesn't work, you can benefit from the manufacturer's warranty and get a free replacement. Manufacturers also issue warnings in bold or red letters for uses of their product that will cause it to malfunction or be destroyed. If there is a warning that this product cannot be exposed to heat above room temperature but you set it on a hot stove, even if by accident, that sucker's going to melt! You can't blame the manufacturer or expect your product to be replaced. You did not follow the instructions and warnings. Bummer in the summer!

Well, God is our Manufacturer. Only He does something so much better because He has a lifetime warranty while you live on this earth regardless of your choices. He gives us instructions in Word about how He created us and everything in the world and how to live life to take care of ourselves and others. He promises His blessings and His help if we follow His instructions because He is a good Manufacturer who created us in His own image. He also warns of our destruction if we do not follow His instructions. But He gives us the choice. Certainly, God is crushed when we choose our own way instead of His, just like a parent who desperately wants His child to succeed by making good choices. God is emotionally invested in His creation, especially us!

Of course, God hates it when we choose to take the life of another! He commanded us not to do that. He gave very clear instructions on this so there would be no confusion because He knows how many natural consequences we will face emotionally, physically, relationally, and spiritually if we take the life of another human being.

He made this beautiful world for us to live in and planted us here to grow and blossom and flourish and procreate. Like a manufacturer, He is the One who made us so He gets to decide how we are best cared for. When we choose to not follow Him and His instructions (which is sin), and we never consult with Him and His instructions over our decisions before we make them (which is pride that we know better than Him), the consequences can be very difficult to bear. In fact, the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. That is the ultimate consequence, like your melted product worthy of nothing but being thrown in the trash. That's why God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on our behalf, even before we were ever born and had the capacity to sin. He knew we would choose to sin and not follow Him, but He died in our place anyway. And that is His lifetime guarantee!

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life! All we have to do is come to Him and humbly confess how we messed up, and He forgives us and makes us spiritually new again! He gives us freedom of choice to once again believe in Him. God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, restores our broken relationship with Himself! He also gives us the freedom of choice to not believe in Him and not follow His instructions. Even if we have chosen not to follow Him in the past, His warranty is not cancelled as long as we remain alive! He gives us freedom of choice to return to Him at any moment and be back in fellowship with Him. He also chooses to love us even when we deserve hell. Even when we face nasty consequences of our own poor choices, God is always with us to help us navigate through them and work them for good when we return to Him and love Him. He is all about love. In fact, God IS love!

God gives us one life each on this earth. Our life is His gift to us, not something for which we can take any credit. It is in living this life that we make choices and have a chance to follow Him or not. Once we are gone from this earth, whether from natural causes or the consequence of our choices, then our place in eternity is the choice we made for ourselves while living on the earth. All choices have consequences; some have good consequences, others have bad.

God is pro-choice in the truest sense of the term. Our pro-choice God wants nothing more than for us to choose to live here on this earth with His favor and blessings and inherit eternal life with Him in His Kingdom forever! He has set before us life and death, blessings and curses. Which will we choose?