"Up To God"

"But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another." (Psalms 75:7) Do you see what I mean? Verse seven, and guess who this verse is about; although, man does have a part, the problem is, he does not have anything to do with it! Maybe this is how the Calvinest get it so wrong, by thinking people are going to turn out the way they turn out, and there is really nothing they need to decide for themselves; it's already been decided already by God. Not quite sure I agree with that. Sure, God knows in advance those that are His, but they don't know who they are, so they still need to make that choice on their own. Besides, John 3:16 says, "whosoever believeth," not, 'whosoever God chooses.' As I am preparing for the message coming up this Saturday, I have to keep thinking about something very important that God illustrated in Exodus chapter Twelve. He gave the children of Israel very specific instruction about what they should do behind those closed doors that they marked with blood, yet as He passed over their houses, He did not open the doors to observe how they were keeping His instructions. I believe that my son is with the Lord; no matter what these last twelve years might have been like for him, he accepted Jesus into his heart back in 1987, and his name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Sure, his walk these last few years has been more like a crawl, and his medications were controlling his life more than the Holy Spirit; but God is the judge, not you or I. It's really hard for a thirty-three year old man to accept the fact that his kidneys have failed him; to need Dialysis three times a week when your still very young is degrading. I really can't blame him for turning to drugs, because his journey took him through some pretty tough circumstances; not to mention how much he changed after his mother became the way that she is. People react differently to certain situations; some people retract, while others push forward; some people crawl into bed and don't want to get out, and some people want to get busy making a difference. I am one of those get busy kind of guys you can't knock down; like a Weeble, I wooble, but I don't fall down! Do you want to know why? It's because my God does not fall down, that's why! I love the story about when the Philistines put the Ark into the temple of their god, Dagon, and they set it next to his statue. They came into the temple to worship the next morning, and Dagon was laying face down on the ground before the Ark. So what did they do, they picked up Dagon, put him back in his place; only to find him the next morning, face down before the before the Ark again; only this time, his head and his arms were cut off of him. (1 Samuel 5:1-4) Don't tell me that God does not have a sense of humor. He did not stop there! After they continued to hold onto the Ark, God smote them all with hemorrhoids! If you don't think that you have a choice in choosing whether or not you are going to get saved, think again; because we all have that choice; and I believe that choice is final...
"Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus (friend of God,) so that you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught." (Luke 1:1-4) NLT