Free Will - The Freedom to Change

By Khen Lim

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The choice to make changes comes from the right to make decisions. This right is derived from a sense of personal freedom, which in itself, is a matter of free will. Free will, by my definition, is therefore the will to decide that has been freely given for personal use and expression.

In other words, we possess the personal right to make changes in our lives because God made sure of that. He ensured that we are born with that free will intact as opposed to a will in which He would otherwise govern directly. 

Had we been created without free will, life would have been dramatically different. It is not a matter of whether free will is or isn’t better than God’s will but more importantly, it is about how we end up living our lives. Without free will, it means that God wills us to do, to say or to execute; all of which are entirely His doing. We have no say in any of it. It also means that there is no concept about opinion because we would have none.

Without free will, we won’t be able to think; after all, there isn’t any necessity to since God will do all the thinking for us. There will be no questions to answer. God provides all the answers and only His answers will apply. Without questions and without the need to think things over means we possess no opinions. If we don’t have any opinions at all, we certainly won’t have the capacity to understand if we should be happy or sad about anything that happens in our lives.

In a life entirely controlled by God’s will, He decides everything. There is none of that concept of expressing our thoughts or feeling how we should feel because none of these matters anymore. We simply do not exist for our own sakes. We don’t have an agenda or a motive to want to live for any other purpose than to do His will. This life is not going to be ours as God’s control over it is absolute.

Let’s consider what’s in it for God if we didn’t have free will:

Life without free will

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He certainly will not be troubled by any of us because we’re unlikely to do anything He doesn’t agree with. Sin isn’t going to be a problem to plague mankind because under God’s control, sin won’t exist. Everything that God prefers is pure and sinless. To be under His will means we run according to a programme that is entirely set by God.

Everything is done according to His will. Nothing will be left unattended to. There is perfection everywhere and nothing will be out of place. There will probably be no need for hell to exist when we can’t put a foot wrong since God gets what He wishes for with the ‘perfect’ man. When He wishes for us to love and embrace Him, that is guaranteed to happen simply because we’re at His bidding.

We are at God’s beck and call literally. We answer His calls all the time. We are never late, never early but perfectly on time. Everything we do, we do perfectly because it is in God’s will that everything is as He wants it to be. In His will, man obeys His every command at any time and no matter what. Without free will, we’re nothing more than just an automaton responding to everything God requires of us.

The point is, is this what God wants for us? Will God enjoy our company without our free will intact? What would the Bible read like when man does not have his free will? Will the stories be the same? Will there be any need for God’s miracles if we’re perfectly moulded to His will?

These are important questions but even so, the answers are remarkably simple.

Man without free will is a man without the ability to make individual decisions or take a unique stand. If God removes free will from us, it is unlikely that He will enjoy communion with us. The fundamental reason behind this is simply put, we are nothing but machinations that echo His every desire but none come from us as individuals.

Without free will, we can love God but He will not be satisfied, knowing that it is unlikely to come from our own heart’s desire. Characters like Enoch and David may not exist because it’s too difficult to know if their love for God is individually genuine or fabricated according to His will. It is therefore doubtful that by echoing everything He wills, He will enjoy any kind of meaningful relationship with us. It would be far better if we love Him willingly rather than to be coerced by force of will. God would surely want it this way as well.

The classic problem of not knowing if a person loves you genuinely is a common affliction among the celebrities, many of whom have trouble coping. Once you become rich and famous, you will have difficulties knowing who you can trust and rely on because you have little way of distinguishing between those who are your true friends and those who are there only for your money. The question is what happens if you were just an ordinary person without the fame and wealth? Will these same people love you or will they walk away disinterested?

Similarly many of these people have problems finding true love, which explains at least to some degree the frequency of divorces and annulments. Many of these marriages are so short-lived that it’s hard to understand what their views are on life-long commitments, faithfulness and mutual trust. Love is very hard to find when the fog of wealth consistently threatens to blind our judgement. In turn we don’t know any more if people love us for who we are or for what we have.

God gave us our free will so we may each personally decide to love Him back. He much prefers that our love for Him is a desire willed from our own selves. God wants us to love Him because we want to and not because we are asked to. By loving Him, He yearns for us to offer up our will to Him, saying, “I surrender my will to You, Lord. Your will be done in mine.” By doing so, God considers this to be our unique and ultimate sacrifice to Him. In much the same way, the Son of God offered Himself up to die for us, to sacrifice Himself so that we can be freed from the bondage of sin and be offered a way back to our Father through Christ.

Defining free will

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So in trying to understand what we do with our free will, let us consider what ‘will’ actually is.

Google talks about ‘free will’ as ‘acting without the constraint of necessity of fate’ or ‘acting at one’s own discretion.’ Wikipedia says it’s our ability ‘to make choices without impediment by prevailing factors’ while Theopedia says these choices are ‘without any prior prejudice, inclination or disposition’ and that these choices to do with free will ‘are ultimately not predestined by God.’

Geoff Ashley in his article called, ‘Do We Have Free Will’ says the word ‘will’ defines ‘the mechanism by which humans make choices.’ And so by my book, ‘free will’ should then be ‘the mechanism by which humans freely make choices.’

Ashley elaborates further on ‘will’, saying:

“Human choices are made on the basis of preferences, pleasures, loves, affections, delights and desires. Choices may be – and often are – made with respect to a combination of various desires, some of which might even be in competition, but all choices ultimately boil down to preference.

“We choose what we find more valuable, enjoyable, pleasurable, etc. We choose what we most desire, what we want, what we ‘will.’ If one want to know what will be chosen, one simply needs to consider what he or she most prefers or loves. The concept of ‘free will’ ultimately boils down to a question of desires. What does the human will most desire?”

In the world we live in, the word ‘free’ has the implication of non-restriction as in ‘free speech’ or ‘freedom of expression’ or ‘freedom to choose.’ All of these are a play on the word ‘free’ that focuses on the rights of the human. While these are proffered by governing bodies and institutions, only God offers free will and with that gift, we mould our lives around the myriad decisions we make about life and death and any other spiritual matters.

God’s gift of free will is aimed at giving us an opportunity to decide if He is Someone we pray to and rely on when in need, if He is the One we seek for healing, or if we accept that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and through Him is delivered the promise of Salvation. Conversely – and much to God’s chagrin – we can also use our free will to denounce or renounce Him, turn our backs on Him, choose to worship pagan gods, revel in satanic acts or commit ourselves to sinful acts that shame Him. The choice is ours, as God promises.

God gives us free will so that He leaves the decision to us to decide whether or not we wish to serve Him, love Him, obey Him, praise, worship and glorify Him and to allow Him to ring in the changes in our lives in order that we are more aligned to His will. Put another way, God gave us free will in a hope that we would ultimately give it back to Him. And this is essentially the fundamental motive behind God’s decision to offer us free will – a fervent wish that we would happily return it. In the place of our free will, God would be pleased if He were to exercise His will through us instead.

The four defining human natures

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Through Scripture, we record the history of Man as having been marked by four identifiable stages of humanity. Firstly man was created. He was pure, untainted and innocent. Secondly then, man fell. Sin crept in and ruined the perfection of nature. Thirdly man was offered the chance at being born again. A divine solution was at hand to rescue man. Fourthly and lastly, man will ultimately be glorified when God completes His vision to save us.

Freedom in each of these four states is distinct in that they are dissimilar. Each is unique and specific. Let’s have a slightly closer look:

Man as ‘created’

Adam and Eve were created in a state of goodness and innocence. They were created in His image and He was pleased. They were to have perfect communion with God and live happily in the Garden of Eden. They were to have complete dominion over the animal kingdom with rights to name all of them. They would never have to work or be burdened in whatsoever manner.

But Man failed to grasp the importance of God’s pleasure and surreptitiously, Adam and Eve were undermined by Satan and the perfect condition was destroyed. This state of happiness, innocence and carefreeness ended after a mere two short chapters in the Bible.

Man as ‘fallen’

What God had in mind with the man at creation couldn’t possibly be the same as that for the fallen counterpart. Once fallen, man was crippled and besieged by sin. In fact because Adam and Eve were tainted, the whole world creaked and moaned with sin as well. In their fallen nature, they were evicted from the Garden of Eden. Their home was barred and the entrance was forever hidden so that they may not return.

In its fallen state, man became depraved, greedy, corrupt, murderous, lustful and conniving. There was a complete turnaround of thoughts. From his original state of innocence, man inherited sin that shaped the way of his ideas, passions and priorities. Selfishness pervaded and wars began.

Man as ‘born again’

God had great plans when man was first created but having fallen into sin, He was forced to hatch a rescue mission that forged the line of the covenant from which Jesus was given the ultimate role to save mankind with a promise of Salvation that was unprecedented. This promise not only provided man with the solitary means by which he can be regenerated or ‘born again’ but it was also the only assurance to prevent the damaging effects of the fall from being permanent.

To be born again, God at this stage brings us out of the darkness of a sinful world and back into the light of Salvation where life is salvaged from eternal damnation. This state of regeneration is also a temporary condition as we anticipate God’s final work to be ultimately finished.

Man as ‘glorified’

God’s greatest work sees finality to the redemption of man. Here we anticipate its completion when Satan is ultimately and forever defeated in an epic finale. God redeems man and hails His creation. We are nowhere near there yet but nonetheless, time is running out.

Of the four states, the second and third are of greatest interest to us right now. The way the human works in terms of free will, will strike a chord of relevance to all of us. In particular we should be interested to know what free will is like for the fallen man and how different it is from the one shaped for the created man.

Because free will is not just given freely by God, it is also free for us to shape our lives around, there is a sense of freedom to determine the level and scope of our desires. We basically have no limit as to what we want. The fallen man would very likely clamour for things that might not be in line with what God wants of us. In a more blunt sense, it means you and I and everyone else in this world of fallen men and women.

Free will in the fallen nature

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What was free will like during the pre-fallen days of Adam? How did he and Eve utilise their free will? Was it the same as how we view free will today? If it’s free will, shouldn’t it be the same 4,000 years ago as it is today?

It’s hard to say what would have happened to free will had Adam and Eve not fallen. If I were to speculate – rightly or wrongly – I might consider the possibility that man could have returned the free will in glory to God and in return, man could live in full praise and glory to the Creator. The created man would have mirrored everything that pleases God. But man fell and things changed.

Because of our fallen nature today, free will is exercised as dramatically as it is differently. And just as God endowed man with intelligence, there have been breathtaking inventions and discoveries over the many centuries but it was in the last 100 or so years that man has elevated himself to a status far grander than at any time in the past.

We have witnessed man using his intelligence to solve problems, willing himself to come up with better ideas to live life more comfortably, to overcome difficulties and improve our well-being. Man has made it possible to travel by air and one day, via space. Man has the convenience and sheer power of computing technologies to render communication anywhere and anytime.

Man has a remarkable span of entertainment to keep himself occupied and similarly so, has used its intelligence to innovate medically to improve health and life expectancies. And for all of these, man has been a marvel.

But man has also used his intelligence for purposes that are not only ethically questionable but are repugnant to God. We have, for example, created the test-tube baby with in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). While it helps families with impotency issues, it brought up serious ethics that have been conveniently side-tracked by the enormity of the innovation. And then man cloned sheep successfully and has since enlarged his cloning ambitions to possibly include even dinosaurs.

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Cryogenics have now also emerged as a viable science for those obsessed with the desire to live forever even if they have diseased bodies. The idea is to immediately freeze the dead body in order to bring it back to life in a future where there’s a cure waiting.

Women who want to look a certain way have gone amok with facial surgeries beyond reasonable limits as well as a complete reshaping of the anatomy from breast implants to all sorts of cosmetic and plastic surgeries that alters the way they look. Men on the other hand obsess over musculature sometimes to the point of looking absurd and abnormal.

Man’s appetite for adventure has also been bordering on unnecessary high risks. Recent efforts at space tourism had not gone well but man has also been into extreme sports that would have been considered ludicrous not too long ago. Man of course has been at odds against one another for thousands of years and despite being more sophisticated, they continue to kill each other by the millions through murders, wars, rapes, beheadings, terrorisms, voluntary suicides, euthanasia, abortions, genocides, chemical warfare and so on.

There are also autocratic countries run by corrupt leadership where the population fight to survive in overcoming starvation while high-ranking officials live in ivory towers where they eat and sleep well. Corruption continues to be at the core of mankind, disguising deception and calling it alarmist or life-saving efforts. Genetically-modified (GM) foods are as good an example as global warming.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you care to dig deeper, it gets more disturbing and horrible. The point is the fallen man has gone on to use free will in the most destructive manner possible but in the main, we now see man doing precisely what Satan said he would do. In the form of the serpent, he predicted that man will defy God, playing God himself.

The serpent said to Eve in Genesis 3:4-5, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (NASB).”

The fallen man equipped with free will is literally in a free fall, empowering himself with all the pretensions of wanting to be God. Through his intelligence, man puts up challenges and meets them and in everything he achieves, it brings him closer to the goal of wanting to be God. As surely as Satan had said, the fallen man has gone on to attaining that quest. The fallen man has denied God not just His glory but in atheism, also His existence. And throughout the world, atheism has driven home the superiority of man’s intelligence at the expense of God.

The free will to defy God

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This is the problem with the fallen man. Equipped with free will, he becomes destructive, defiant and dissonant, with an affinity towards personal pleasures. The fundamental needs include a desire to love and be loved, to be passionate about things that are worthy of attention and to exploit every accessible source of pleasure. Beneath the seemingly innocent smokescreen is a free will that is underpinned by a sense of rebellion against order. It’s as if man is all the more goaded when challenged not to do a certain thing. In other words, the more you tell a person not to do something, the more he will end up doing it.

Whatever the social, economic or political reasons, the human rebelliousness streak exists; perhaps in some cases more than others. We have been witnessing a generation of increasingly anarchistic behaviour where society breaks down into demonstrations and riots across parts of Europe such as France, United Kingdom, Belgium and others. In the Middle-East, the Arab Spring is a strong reminder and in Asia, civil and social unrests are common in Thailand but also occurs in the Philippines, even Singapore recently and of late, Hong Kong. Unfortunately more will follow.

As the world progressively changes, the nature of the fallen man looms larger and with it, the free will to defy God with unacceptable behaviour. Rebellion on a smaller scale is just as apparent even at home where kids do not conform or comply with parental instructions. Rebellion has become an integral part of the landscape of the fallen nature simply because we have the freedom of will to choose to go any way we like.

There is nothing we cannot reach out to when we have the free will to decide. And that includes violence, brutality and sheer depravity. In other words, the will is endemically influenced by and towards evil. We have come from a long history of disobedience and rebelliousness – the record of the fallen man is well documented in Scripture where God had often referred to us as “stiff-necked people” (2 Kgs 17:14, 2 Chr 30:8, Neh 9:29, Jer 7:26 etc).

Paul in Ephesians 2:3, remarks that we are “by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (NASB). In Isaiah 30, God warns and admonishes Judah saying, “Woe to the rebellious children.” He also warned Moses of the same rebelliousness in Deuteronomy 9. In fact according to the NASB translation, the word ‘rebellious’ (including ‘rebellion’ and ‘rebelliousness’) occurs 73 times throughout the Bible and all of them are aimed at us, the fallen man.

And yet, there are sporadic acts of kindness and the occasional occurrences of amazing people doing amazing things out of the ordinary. Be it Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr or David Livingstone, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Watchman Nee or William Wilberforce, these are exceptional people with an exceptional heart for God. Amidst a backdrop tainted by sin, these are infrequent instances of kindness and love, which is why people of this calibre consistently make headline news.

Even so, Romans 1:18-32 paints a worryingly depraved impression of the fallen human in rebellion against his Creator. Here Paul writes of the following:

-         Man’s tendency to deny the truth even if the truth is already evident to him (vv19-20)

-         Man’s dishonouring of God (vv21,24)

-         His corrupted nature (vv22-23)

-         Man’s deference to serving the creation instead of the Creator (v25)

-         The distorted and unnatural homosexual proclivities (vv26-27)

-         A full list of depravities and unrighteousness that include the very worst that man is today culpable of (vv28-31)

Of those outlined by Paul, Man’s preoccupation with self is at the centre of our discussion about free will. With the freedom given, the fallen man has an overt obsession with the gift and not the Giver; the creation and not the Creator. The vanity issue witnesses man being in love with himself at the exclusion of God.

Sin is played out not only in terms of the externalities we see and hear but also the inner corruption where the fallen man may appear generous, charitable and caring on the one hand but then seeks and demands attention and wants centre stage on the other. Where vanity meets hypocrisy, man’s great works can often be seen for what they are – monuments to self-aggrandisement.

-         A self-made wealthy man returns to his ancestral hamlet in China, builds them a hospital but insists that as a condition, it must be named after him.

-         A self-righteous driver grandly stops his car by the side of a narrow road, allows the car in the opposite direction to pass but curses him for not thanking him for his generosity.

-         A sanctimonious passer-by sees an elderly lady and helps her to cross the street while at the same time, ensures that everyone can see his deeds and views him as a hero.

-         A businessman gives openly to charities for everyone to see as he craves the praises that the public heaps upon him.

The examples are endless but presumably, you get the point.

Despite the good nature of these actions, none are done in humility. Every one of them reflects a personal desire for self-glorification. The fallen man’s pursuit of greatness is done as if to humble God. It underpins an overpowering sense of vanity and self-importance because there is no evidence that God is glorified in their actions no matter how noble. It is this insincerity that underscores the fallen man’s ominous grab for attention, power, praise and glory. Very little of what man does today is done in faith to God.

Romans 14:23 puts it into perspective saying that when we doubt, it “is not from faith and whatever is not from faith is sin” (NASB). 1 Corinthians 10:31 is even more to the point when it says that, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (NASB),” which means there is no righteousness in denying Him.

Is free will our passport to sin?

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Over the centuries since Christ and His disciples, the fallen man has not stopped craving sin. In fact what we’ve been witnessing is that the craving has worsened even as our lives have become more comfortable. It seems that as advanced technologies have made us more capable in so many ways, we’ve become even more depraved as we appear to be ‘better able’ to express our sinfulness.

In the last half a century, man has moved forward with impressive advancement. Technologies – essentially unacknowledged gifts from God – have been helping man to churn out amazing capabilities to help improve the quality of life but at the same time, there is a darker side to every such achievement.

-         Where we can withdraw money from any ATM at any time of the day and night, someone will be able to use it to steal from other people’s accounts. The same is happening online with what is now known as ‘phishing.’

-         We can use email to communicate almost instantly with anyone in any part of the world but at the same time, unwittingly opening a spam mail can mean someone will steal information from our computers. Similarly as we visit websites to buy or read, terrorists are using them to spread death.

-         While we enjoy travelling by air from one continent to another in a matter of hours, we are also extremely worried if there are any undetected suicidal terrorists onboard meant to kill all of us.

-         As cars become increasingly more advanced and sophisticated, more powerful and carry greater cachet, many buy them as statements of vanity and wealth and then use them abusively on the road. It isn’t just cars – man does it with many other types of material wealth also.

None of these are new to all of us. We see them every day and everywhere. Scripture provides plenty of glimpses of the same evil, painting a dire picture of the fallen man. Here are some of them (via NASB translation):

2 Corinthians 4:4 affirms this by saying that the ‘god of this world’ has so blinded our judgement that we cannot see ‘the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ.’

Colossians 1:21 says we ‘engage in evil deeds’ and in 2:13, affirms that despite our trespasses and sins, God has ‘forgiven us our transgressions’ so that we can be made ‘alive together with Him.’

Ephesians 2:1 reminds us that ‘in our trespasses and sins,’ we are all effectively dead while 4:18 tells us that our life is set apart from God because of the darkness of our hearts.

Galatians 4:8 affirms that the fallen man is enslaved to the flesh of the world, so blinded to the effect that we hardly know who God is anymore.

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us how confounded we all are at the very sight of our deceitfulness to the point where we’re sickened to know it.

John 3:19-20 tells us that those who live in darkness and are evil will shun the light because light exposes our treachery, which is the very reason why the fallen man is so hateful of God. In 8:34, John goes on to cite Jesus saying that everyone who commits sin is indeed enslaved to sin. 12:39-40 paints a woeful picture of our blindness and hardened hearts so much so that in the end, we can neither see nor perceive anymore.

Matthew’s poetic expressions in 13:14-15 sums it up by saying that we may keep hearing but still we won’t understand; we may keep seeing but yet won’t perceive. The end picture is that we are not likely to change for the better.

Despite knowing God, Romans 1:21 tells us that our darkened hearts will lead us to failure, to dishonouring God and to not acknowledge His love. In 6:17, Paul writes that the fallen man is a slave to sin but yet reveals there is hope of obedience. In 8:7, Paul goes on to say that our flesh is set up against God so that we do not subject ourselves ‘to the law of God’; simply put, we are incapable of doing so.

In Titus 3:3, Paul reminds us of our foolishness because we are ‘disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.’

The creation rather than the Creator

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Man has come a long way. From creation to fallen, man has shaped himself to become so far from what God first had in mind; so far that in his fallen state, man faces the risk of not knowing who Christ is anymore. And with it, the nature of free has also changed with the baggage of sin becoming increasingly more dominant.

In a Washington Times article by Cheryl Chumley dated November 25 2014, a preacher who is also the father of Senator Ted Cruz, Rafael Cruz rallied Christians in America to wrestle back their country from “atheists and progressives,” saying,

“…we need to be preaching that a dependence society is a society that becomes a slave to government. We live in the land of plenty… God gave this land to America so this land could become a beacon to the Gospel and a just model for the world of what a Christian nation is like. We are losing that witness because we are allowing secular humanism to pervade society, to pervade our schools.” (Note: words highlighted by me)

Mr Cruz’s statement is a sad admission of a once great nation now burdened by sin. While he is right in saying the God is still in charge, the indictment of the fallen man is all too obvious. Weighed down and married to sin, the fallen man is trapped. Christ had come to offer an infinitely superior alternative but sin is blocking man’s view of God’s promise. What had caused man to fall in the first place, had also forever turned the nature of freedom upside-down.

The free will that was given to the created man isn’t the same today. Our understanding of freedom is not one of goodness, kindness, innocence and oneness with God. It isn’t any longer about being chaste with God, and pleasing Him. It definitely isn’t about doing His will or being obedient to His Word.

The free will that pervades society today is as Mr Cruz puts it, ‘secular humanism’ and more. It is no longer about God. It is about living in the flesh, immersed with self-importance and being permissive in the most liberal sense. It is about the self – the creation – and not God, the Creator. It revolves around obedience not unto God but unto one’s own desires.

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Man is in love with the world. Everything he does is for the world. Man’s obsession with material wealth is matched only to his deep concern about his own self-image. Our desire is purely to promote one’s own self. We worry about how we look to others but not how we look before God. We may feel empathetic to one another but we don’t seem to care much about our relationship with God.

All this leads us to seek an understanding of the concept of freedom. If man has changed so dramatically, it goes without saying that one’s interpretation of freedom would also have changed in similar vein.

Theology created a term called ‘true freedom’ to distinguish itself from ‘freedom of choice.’ The former defines a nature in which we can be who we are without the lingering impeding curse of sin. Unburdened as such, we live in the purity of freedom as God wants it to be. In other words we are unshackled by sin. ‘Freedom of choice’ simply refers to man’s ability to choose as he pleases but here’s the rub – because freedom is tainted, sin is present and the choices are no longer purely in line with God.

Through every step of man, from being created to fallen to born again and then to glorified, freedom had meandered and shifted.

Man in his created state had both – pure freedom and a limitless choice to choose how to worship God.

Once fallen, man loses true freedom but maintains the same freedom to choose except that sin has now crept into the choices.

The born-again man regains some but not all of true freedom and the same sin-tainted choices. He is in a better position relative to the fallen man, being closer to restoring his relationship to the Father.

The glorified man, on the other hand, will be manifested in the fullness of both, making a full circle and returning to God’s original blueprint for man.

The truth is that once the fallen man yields to Christ, God’s Spirit is awakened in him. Jerry Depoy, Pastor of Bible Baptist Temple, outlines his triple-A transformation of man:

Firstly the evangelist plays the role in enabling the fallen man to be AWARE of the Truth

Secondly the fallen man must ACKNOWLEDGE the truth that he is told and yields to it

Thirdly once he is made aware of the Truth, the Spirit of God is AWAKENED in him

Change to re-express free will

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God chooses to offer us free will. He didn’t have to but He did. He did in the hope that we can build a trust around Him to surrender it back. In exchange, God’s will be done and we live to accord Him the glory He is owed.

The only problem here is that not all of us are inclined to want to do this. With the choices that man has today, free will is inevitably bonded to sin, which means that man faces a daunting task fighting off sin to please God. Invariably the priority of the fallen man is personal pleasure above everything else.

This problem is just as evident in the life of a church. The nature of the fallen man pervades just as much in the life of every church-going Christian, the choices he makes and the desires he has. Just as he is given gifts by God, he can define his free will based on what he is good at doing, how productive he wants to be, how he sees himself and where he wants his future to lie in. What he does with his time will be measured against what he can gain personally from it.

Over the years at our church, there is sufficient indication that personal priorities shape a congregant’s decision to help in church matters. The importance of self far outweighs any matter that arises from the church whether we’re looking for assistance to stage Christmas or finding volunteers to spring-clean the church or asking for ideas to improve the church or eliciting helpers to reach out to different communities.

For decades we have faced walls of silence as pew-warmers take into their stride of not doing anything in church but would have no problems fulfilling all their personal goals. They may come to church for Sunday services but nothing moves them to do things for God. For a small church like ours, this attitude has the ability to reduce our activities to nothing but Sunday services, meaning that we have scratched Prayer Meetings and Bible Studies since attendances were appalling. Even Movie Nights had such low turnouts. Clearly the freedom of choices is such that most people would elect to do other things than to come pray together or learn the Bible or to participate in praise and worship.

You are the Change

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The fundamental seed for change is desire. In other words the only way that we can change from the inside is if we really want it to happen. God measures the sincerity in our desire for change. In other words He looks deep into our hearts to determine how much we want that change to come over our lives, how much this change means to us and what it means to each and every one of us to change.

When we have that desire to change, God will provide the drive to make things happen. The engine of change will spur us, will inspire us, will motivate and uphold us. When there is a yearning to bring change to our lives, the presence of the Spirit of God will be keenly felt. When we are finally in touch with the desire for true freedom, we will sense it.

In Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NASB), God says, “…I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

The ‘new heart’ and the ‘new spirit’ that God speaks of is the engine to drive us. We will have the heart to do things for God and the spirit that never gives up. By removing our hardened hearts, God will replace them with a yearning to be of service to Him and this is made possible because He will instil within us His Spirit so that we may do things according to His will.

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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:20 (NASB) that, “for the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.” That power will be vested in those whose desire to change for God is strong. And with God’s power vested in us, we cannot go wrong. Romans 8:31 (NASB) says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” No one!

Needless to say in our quest to bring change, we will encounter steep challenges. As we have seen, decades of inactivity and apathy will not be easy to overcome overnight. Some of us will feel demotivated at some point. Disillusionment, jadedness and discouragement will afflict others. Hardy problems will rear up, looking larger than needed, making some of us feel naïve. At many turns, we will be tempted to draw down our efforts and surrender.

Change is not easy to come by. If it were so, churches everywhere would be filled to the brim, financially flourishing, engaged in countless exciting ministries and making their presence felt in society and influencing public opinion in the most positive manner. Sin will continue to wreck our efforts and we have to be watchful and prayerful about such things. To break that chain of bondage will require us to fulfil our faithfulness in Christ and to wear that on our sleeves and breathe it like air.

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For change to materialise, we are to be stubborn and resolute about what we want to achieve. When the desire is aflame, we can see it through but we must also be mindful of our complete dependence on God all the way.

Therefore when we fall, Christ will be there to lift us up. 

When we begin to weaken, He will strengthen us. 

When we impoverish ourselves, He will enrich us. 

When we want to give up, He will renew and inspire us. 

When we feel powerless, He will empower us. 

Nothing will be done without glory gained by and accorded to God Most High.

Our free will may be tainted and our freedom of choices may constantly be threatened by the temptation of sin. We live in a world that will forever creak under the weight of such depravity but there is nothing stopping us from desiring to change. It does not matter if we fail in the end so long as we are seen to try and do our best.

God measures us not by results – for He knows we would fail without Him – but by our individual efforts. That is what our free will should be shaped for – to be firmly undergirded by a natural desire to please God and be of good service to Him.

That is basically all He asks. 

Note: A sermon based on this article was delivered at Hosanna EFC, Ipoh on November 30 2014. Unquestionably the article is greater in depth and more detailed than a short sermon can ever be although the gist of the message remains the same.