“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil… “
And “I call heaven and earth as witnesses… (that)
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life that both you and your seed may live.” Torah
I watched a program on BBC sometime ago. It was on the question of life, whether it is predetermined or a matter of choice. Long story short, these ’eminent panelists’ concluded, by computation, that life indeed is a matter of choice, and not determinism.
Life indeed, is both, as the Torah clearly put it, over four millennia ago! There are fixed laws out there with predetermined consequences. But we have the inalienable right (which can neither be taken from us nor given away by us).
Laws, spiritual or man made, would make no sense, if we are pre-programmed in any way and without the power of choice. Indeed, that would be the height of injustice!
But life isn’t fair, we say. That is a well-worn cliché. And it would seem so, for none of us chooses our parents, nationality, race or the era into which we are born. Or the location: from the freezing arctic through verdant forests to the fiery deserts. You wonder, why? For, those variables are the general starting points in life, literally and figuratively.
It is the will of God, some claim. But by that, they mean that God is in complete control of life, including control over our choices and actions. And that is determinism, which, from the Torah, and now from science, we know is not true.
Besides, that would mean that God is unjust and/or whimsical. And that contradicts the Torah in any case. Because it leaves man, and the evil satan, out of the equation. It is an error which breeds fatalism:
“Let us eat and drink, and tomorrow we die.”
Jesus Christ came to bear witness unto Truth: God Almighty, and to introduce His Kingdom, the spiritual but Sovereign ruler ship over all realms.
For, “the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink (the material); but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (the spiritual).” Gospel
The Hebrew and Greek words for righteousness, tsedeq and dikaiosune, in the broad sense infer ‘the state of him who is such as he ought to be; the condition acceptable to God’. Strong’s Concordance/Hebrew and Greek dictionary
We find this word, righteousness, contrasted with lies in both the Torah and the Gospel:
“You love evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness.”
“He that speaks truth shows forth righteousness.” And
“I the Lord speak righteousness, and declare things that are right.” Torah
“He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.” Jesus Christ
Truth is as we ‘ought to be’ and anything else is a lie! We can re write the Gospel verse quoted earlier, without doing it injustice, thus:
“The Kingdom of God is not what we ‘see’, the material/physical realm with all its pains and anxiety; but ‘what we ought to be’, the spiritual Truth, which also comes with peace and joy… ”!
This Kingdom is for all, even as many as are willing to receive it.
For “there is no iniquity with our God, neither respect of persons.”
Rather:
“The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” Torah
God’s ruler ship is established in the heavens, in the spiritual realm. And His laws, the laws that govern His creation, are over all realms.
However, on earth, and in particular with man, His ruler ship is only over the willing.
For, ‘the earth He has given to mankind.’ Torah
Man was created, in the ‘likeness of God’, with a will. And God fully expected man to operate like Him. With words, yes, but His words.
Law: Behold You desire truth in the inward parts. Torah
Truth in the ‘inward parts’, the human spirit, is the will of God.
To choose ‘truth in the inward parts’, in obedience to God, is to choose to yield your will to God; to ‘serve’ Him.
Law:“To whom you yield yourself servant to obey, his servant you are to whom you choose to obey…
…from the heart (the seat of the human will).” Gospel
Man can choose to serve/obey God.
Or choose to serve/obey satan.
Moreover, to refuse to choose is not an option. That would be a choice to ‘serve’ satan by default, for he is the ‘god of this age’, according to the Gospel.
God gave man a will, “after (His) likeness”, and He will not over ride that will.
The devil, satan, on the other hand, cannot over ride the will of man. He only deceives mankind into spiritual error, into disobedience to God’s Truth: His good and perfect laws, designed for our benefit!
Unlike God, satan has no regard for the human will. He is a tyrant who seeks, and succeeds unfortunately, to lord it over man through man’s ignorance!
For God made man “a little lower than the angels.” But “..crowned him with glory and honor… to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
(and) put all things under his feet. ” Torah
God has ” put all things under” man, but subject to man living and ruling by Truth, His will.
Goodness is the will of God for all: man primarily; and beast and the environment under man.
There was no record of evil in God’s ‘very good’ creation, in the Torah account, until satan came along.
Evil, the opposite of good, only entered into the world because Adam and Eve were deceived into choosing a lie. They chose to obey the voice of satan; the ultimate source of all evil!
Adam’s wrong choice was the genesis of evil in this age. That turned man, the de jure (legal/by right) god of this world, into a servant to satan who is now the de facto ‘god of this age’. The devil, satan, is the de facto ‘father’ or ‘pattern’ of mankind in this age.
This is the default state of man, whether we ‘know’ it or not, or believe it or not. The unregenerate man is a child of the devil, a child of lies and darkness, and evil at heart.
Yet, man retains the power of choice in the earth, for “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable”, according to the Gospels.
Man still has God’s will behind him. A past error may be a factor of what you are today but it is not the determinant of who you are, or of your future. You are in charge, or should be!
According to your faith be it unto you. Jesus Messiah
Faith, or what you believe, is a matter of your will, a matter of who you choose to trust in. The Greek root word for belief is pisteuo, which means: to ‘trust in, rely on or to obey’.
To choose is to believe, and to believe is to choose.
Life is a matter of which king or kingdom, we choose to ‘serve’, to subject our will to:
God and His Kingdom by choice.
Or satan and the ‘kingdoms of this world’ by choice or default.
Each kingdom has its laws and core values but both operate by words.
Words have at least two distinct functions:
- To communicate the will of a person.
- To convey the authority and power of the person (the author of the word/words) for the accomplishment of that will. Words create and materialize the will of the author.
“Where the word of a king is, there is power…” Torah
We do not really have any power of our own. We are ultimately subject to one or the other of the two ruling powers: God, or satan.
Man is not a sovereign being!
That man is his own god is utter nonsense. That is a spiritual illusion. Which man has ever kept himself from death, man’s mortal enemy? Or determined the circumstances of his birth? Man is only in control, in so far as he can choose the king to serve:
Either God, Most High.
Or satan, the usurper ‘god of this age’.
And words are spiritual seeds of one or the other kingdom. (Spora/sperma in Greek, denoting seed or alluding to parentage.)
Like natural seeds/sperm, words have inherent ‘power/life’ to bear fruit, and to reproduce their kind, ad infinitum; “the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind” Torah.
Mango seeds do not produce oranges! Neither does an orange seed produce grapes or any other fruit but oranges. Every seed produces ‘after its kind’, no matter how long the reproduction process goes on for.
Adam, the ‘Khalifa’ (caretaker), as the Koran calls him, chose to obey a lie and that one lie has been reproduced through the ages into many more lies, ‘after its kind’: in 4000 religions around the world; traditions as many as there are people groups; in secretive, evil and deceptive occultic practices (the root word for occult, is ‘hidden’) or even in ‘science falsely so called’, as the Gospel puts it.
(Now we know how science, scientia or knowledge in Latin, can be manipulated for unscientific goals.)
Adam’s one error has kept mankind in bondage, ever ‘seeking’ but never coming into or embracing Truth. For, lies seek to do just that: to keep you from ‘knowing’ Truth.
“Lest you should ponder the paths of life, her ways are unstable”; ever shifting. Torah
All the suffering in this world: disease, poverty, wars, injustice etc., in a word, spiritual death, would not be, if only Adam chose, and retained Truth; the ‘incorruptible seed’ of God’s Word.
Yet, we can chart a new course by the simple act of our will; by choice.
For, “death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
Tongue here refers to the language of the king/kingdom.
Truth is the language of God.
And lies, the language of satan, for “he is a liar and the father of it.” Jesus told us that plainly.
Tongue in Hebrew can also be interpreted as ‘talker’.
Death and life are in the power of the ‘talker’!!
What are you ‘talking’?
To talk in line with the Truth, God’s Word, is life giving, and fulfilling.
For, God’s words “are not just idle words for you, they are your life.” Torah
On the other hand, to talk in line with lies or the temporal ‘facts’ of life, is death producing and unfulfilling.
If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Jesus Christ
That is a universal law. The word ‘possible’ shares the same root word as ‘chance’. Life is a matter of chance: what we do with time and events largely outside of our control.
For we always have the power to respond to every ‘chance’ or ‘time/era’, in the light of Truth or in the darkness of lies. Whether the ‘chance’ or ‘time’ be good or bad.
That is the only real power that we wield. And it is the only power that brings fulfillment, in spite of whatever life brings.
That power is the human will.
For “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all. Torah
Now, these three variables are
before us all:
Time. Chance. Choice.
Neither time nor chance is ours to choose. Only the choice of response is in our power.
Life is a war. And we’ve got the right, and the power of our will, to fight this war. And we can win, because we were pre-configured to win, no matter the ‘time’ or ‘chance’ before us. But we need the right partner!
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Torah
That is a sure promise from God. He will give to man, any man, the ‘desires of the heart’, when man delights in/chooses God’s way, His ‘way of truth’.
For “this is love for God, to obey His commands.” Gospel
Alas, the heart of man is in ‘hiding’ and missing in action. Man is more inclined to the ‘desires of the flesh and of the mind’; lusts.
Yet, “all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world… and are psssing away” Gospel.
To win in life, we must engage the heart and the right partner; the king to ‘trust in, rely on and to obey’.
Our partner becomes our spiritual source, our spiritual father; ‘deep’ calling unto and reproducing ‘deep’.
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Gospel/Injeel
Even so, as many as are led by the spirit of satan, they are the sons of satan, the devil.
Who is your father?
‘Father’ also means Source. The word comes from the Latin root patr. This Latin root is the word origin of a number of English words, including paternity, patron, and pattern.
We do not have a choice over who our earthly father should be. But we have the awesome power, and responsibility, to choose who our spiritual Father, Source or Pattern should be: God, the Blessed, or satan, the evil one and the default spiritual ‘father’ of mankind.
For now, “we know… that the whole world is under the power of the evil one.” Gospel
Evil is the prevalent reality of this age, because fallen man is subject by default to deceitful and extremely wicked satan; ‘the father of lies’ and the pattern of wickedness.
Which explains why the heart of man too “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”. Torah.
The wickedness in the heart of man is best seen in wars, or even in marriages gone awry, in the likeness of “your father, the devil”. Jesus said that.
But you can choose a different ‘father’, and tread a new path.
Yes, you can do this, even in this evil age. You can choose God and His ‘way of Truth’. For this is the will of God:
“That you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life… “ Torah
To choose this Truth is to find meaning and fulfillment in life from get go. And to live in shalom, no matter what life brings on the outside.
For God’s ‘Kingdom is within you’, in the human spirit… if you choose to receive Truth therein. The fruit thereof, will be “peace and joy” in the heart.
You could never buy those with money. And whatever would threaten God’s peace and joy in the heart, can only be temporal.
For, “all people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” Torah/ Gospel
Only Truth, ‘the word of the Lord’, has eternal value. Nothing else in life is permanent. Not good or bad times, not riches or poverty. Not health or sickness. Nothing but Truth.
Even the ungodly Socrates knew that and said as much: ‘no human condition is ever permanent’!
So, we have a choice. To look, or not to look”at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen:
…for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Gospel
Life is ultimately this one choice; of Yes, or No, to Truth; the invisible but eternal reality.
A Yes, to Truth in the heart, is to live the highest possible form of life: the MaxLife!
The MaxLife will not guarantee you the life of a millionaire (you don’t need a million dollars to live the MaxLife), or even a life devoid of challenges (that is an illusion in a war zone).
But you will live above any and every challenge. You will live with meaning and hope beyond your challenges. Beyond chance and time!
That is the will of God, until the final restoration of divine order in the earth, when death, ‘the last enemy’ would be put under.
Does God care for the material? But of course! He created all things needful for man, even before man was created and given the charge ‘over all the earth’.
However, the ultimate meaning and pursuit of life is, and should be, Truth… as we ought to be, and ‘all these things shall be added unto you’.
That does not mean that you do not attend to your physical needs. No. It means that those needs should not be your priority in life.
“For the life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.” Jesus Christ
We work to live. We don’t live to work or for work. It’s a matter of perspective. A matter of choice.
But here is a sobering thought. You can only make this decision for yourself.
You cannot override the will of another person or persons. We would like to change the world, but you can only really choose for yourself.
The objective is to align yourself with Truth. Change itself is outside our ken. It comes from above.
We choose and we are changed in time, nearly always imperceptibly. Thereafter, we may persuade men and be a light of possibility unto them but they still have to choose.
Or be coerced! Which is not the way of God. That is the way of the evil one and his human agents; tyrants in every age and people groups.
Everyone has the right to choose or reject Truth. But no one has the right, or power, to create their own ‘truth’!
That is an illusion!! A dangerous one too. That is spiritual psychosis!!
Therefore, “buy the truth and sell it not”. Torah