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When children reach the age of two, they discover the word “No.” Saying “no” is their way to exercise their free will as they develop from infancy into the full-grown person they will become. By age 4 most of the tantrums are gone because they have found other ways to express their inner frustrations. God created all of us with free will. The decisions we make with our free will determine our destiny. That’s why it is so important that we give careful consideration to the decisions we make. Since decisions begin in the mind, we expose our minds to truth that will become the basis of our decisions. The Apostle John understood this. He illustrated it with two groups of people he talks about in John 12. One group consisted of Jesus’ fellow disciples; they decided early to investigate the claims that Jesus was the Messiah. After their investigation, they decided to accept Him as bonafide, even though they did not understand some of the predictions about Him until after He had risen from the dead. Another group of people, the religious leaders, were so passionate about maintaining their position of power over people, that even though they had the same information about Jesus, they chose to reject Him and crucified Him. So we must be very careful how we exercise our free will. If we are not careful, we will choose to ignore God’s best for us and suffer the consequences.
