Choice: The Sophisticated Difference

I dearly love the morning sun.  So, my morning prayer time is usually located directly in front of an eastern facing window in our den.  And just outside that window are two willow trees with a bird feeder and bird bath located between them.  And, every summer morning those trees are alive with birds at this aviary McDonalds.

Recently, as I watched their activities for a couple of minutes, I heard a divine whisper (in my heart, not my ear).  That still, small voice said, “The difference is choice.”  As usual, I was then instantly engulfed in a fresh game of “Do What?” which the Lord seems to love to initiate on bright, sunny, summer mornings – and, for that matter, on cold, cloudy, winter mornings as well.

So, as I pondered that quick thought for a bit, I realized something.  Birds don’t really make choices, they just respond to the simple stimulants of their day.  “Sun is up – go to Larry’s house and score a birdseed breakfast.  Sun is down - go to the forest and get some shut-eye until the Birdie “Big Mac” opens again in the morning.”  Every day it’s the same routine – no choice required. It’s just instinctively doing the next obvious thing. 

But in the Book of Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus relays a kind of oblique example of just how important choice making is to the human species.  There He says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.  Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’   And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Obviously, the group which Jesus describes here made, in His mind, some bad choices. And, their character, their life experience, and their ultimate outcome were all defined by those choices. 

But certainly, what they chose to do does not, at first glance, seem obviously bad.  In fact, they actually seem to be a fairly good set of time and energy investment choices.  Nevertheless, the reality which Jesus describes here is that those choices did, indeed, lead to the group’s catastrophic failure in the end.

But, upon reflection, it becomes evident that their failure was actually set up eons before these people were even born.  It was actually set in motion in the Garden of Eden when Satan uttered these words to Eve.  “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] your eyes will  be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” [Brackets added]

This treacherous statement is where it all started to go off the rails for mankind.  And, that existential wreck revolves around just one initial question: “Can human beings source truth merely from within themselves?”  

In other words, if truth is the correct interpretation of reality, and it is that, then, can we become our own authoritative self-interpreters of the good or evil in life’s circumstances – independently of God?  And eventually, the question becomes, “Can we successfully make the jump to living an entirely self-determined life instead of a God- guided one?”

In point of fact, Satan’s most cherished goal for every generation is to convince humanity that we absolutely can make that leap successfully.  And, this is precisely the pitch that he made to Adam and Eve in that infamous garden meeting. He said, “You will not surely die...you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”    

To this very day, this remains the arch demon's chief subversive tactic to undermine the God/ man relationship.  It is to make each of us believe that just calling life as we see it, individually, irrespective of God’s view, is simply the more direct, secure, and unimpeded path to personal fulfillment.  

And, therein lay Satan’s real leverage – it was that normal and deep-seated desire for personal fulfillment which resides in all of us.  So, exaggerating that legitimate motive into something it was never intended to be, Satan began to sell The Great Lie, to humanity.  And that lie was essentially this. “By becoming your own truth-giver and interpreting and directing your life circumstances as you see fit, you can become your own best hope for personal fulfillment.”  

And, Satan also had (and has) a much greater treachery in mind than just subverting Adam and Eve.  Satan’s ultimate aim is to universally obliterate the supremacy of divine truth – God’s unique and singular authority to say what is the correct interpretation of reality. 

Ultimately, Satan’s treacherous intention is to make every individual secure in the belief that their interpretations of reality are equal in weight and value to God’s. Satan relentlessly pursues this equilibrium of truth because he knows that in that resulting vast sea of mere deluded opinions, mankind will lose his most fundamental relational connection to God.  He will lose his view of God as his beloved and and  supremely authoritative Truth-giver.

 So, by that garden treachery, Satan shattered the confidence of the first couple in the supremacy of the divine truth – and through them, that of the species.  And, as a result, man did, indeed, start to think of himself as his own best hope for fulfillment, and thus, the better master of his own life-course.  Thus, we are now born, predisposed to believe this treacherous satanic whisper, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil…” 

So, Adam and Eve introduced this new soul-killing life approach of self-determination into the human experience.  They became their own interpreters of good and evil, right and wrong, how to proceed, etc.   And, all of their subsequent choices, became based  merely on  their own individual, and very subjective view of things.

In their naiveté, Adam and Eve did not realize that they were actually making the most fundamentally important choice that mankind ever makes.  And they also failed to understand the far reaching sophistication of that choice.  So, they never saw the devastation coming, until it was too late.  

One's answer to the question, “Whose circumstantial interpretations (truth) will I embrace,” inextricably leads to one of two outcomes.  It leads to either a humble life of faith under the loving and benevolent guidance of our Creator.   Or, it leads to an arrogant life of self-determination under the direction of merely our own thoughts, and ideas.  

Adam and Eve mistakenly opted for the latter. And, in fact, so also did that group described in Matthew 7.  They, too, failed to see the sophisticated outflows of becoming one’s own truth-giver.  Indeed, they entirely failed to see what Jesus saw instantly and very clearly.

 So, in that last critical moment of time, Jesus, looked right past their self-determined “good” works. Instead, He entirely assessed them by the quality of their interactivity with God. He judged them by His own, much more primary considerations. “Were their actions born of a true deference to the Father’s wishes (faith)?  Or, were they born of those still self-determined motives – merely veneered in relational pretense?”  

 In this instance, Jesus determined that the latter case was the true reality, and His judgement, then, was this. “I never *knew you; [I’ve never known a truly close and correctly interactive friendship with you] depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness [you who practice self-determination]!” [Brackets Added]

(* In the Greek, the word used here for "knew" is "Genosco."  Its precise meaning is, "a deep and intimate knowing.")

So, as it turns out, birds do, indeed, have the more simplistic existence – no sophisticated choices involved. They just instinctively pursue the up-close, day-to-day necessities.  Thus, it would seem that “the capacity for choice is the difference,” and a big one, just as God whispered to me on that sunny summer morning. 

And, it would also seem to come to this.  Indeed, we are human beings, not birds.  And, as such, we are now actually obligated to make this very sophisticated choice regarding our truth source.  

So, through Christ, we can choose to trust God and His loving daily guidance as our supreme and always trustable Truth-giver.  Or, we can opt out of that, in favor of becoming our own.  But,  as with that M-7 group, in the end, this will, indeed, be the very choice which entirely defines each of us in God's eyes.