Thankful, Day Ninety-One

Make a joyful shout to the LORD all you lands!

Serve the LORD with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

Know that the LORD, He is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,

And into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

For the LORD is good;

His mercy is everlasting,

And His truth endures to all generations.

Psalm 100, NKJV

From before the foundation of the world, He knew me and called me by name. Before I was ever born, all my days were recorded in the books of heaven. When I was yet unformed, a cluster of cells in the womb of my mother, He was intimately acquainted with my form and substance. He fashioned me with His hand according to His will, plan and purpose, having predestined me through His omniscient foreknowledge and His omnipotent power to fulfill His good pleasure through my life.

Some, the Bible says, are made for honor, and some for dishonor. Some are made to demonstrate the limitless love of the Lord, and others His awesome power. Some are created for good works in Christ, some for the day of judgment. And God is sovereign in all of those things. So where does my choice lie? What say do I have in all these matters? And the truth is, I have the choice, and I have a say. I am not an automaton, a preprogrammed piece of flesh predestined to goodness or badness, heaven or hell. I still have self-determination. I can choose to honor God with my life, or dishonor Him. I can choose to be the object of His love, or the subject of His wrath. I can choose to do good works, or perform badly. And yet, God already knows which it's going to be.

Still, I am glad God has made me, and not me myself. I can only imagine what kind of proud and haughty tyrant I might be as a self-made man, responsible for my own exaltation to master of all I survey, or for my fall into the slum gutters of a sin-filled life. I am who I am, and what I am, by the grace of God. It is the grace of God that keeps me from being exalted above measure, and it is the grace of God that keeps me from falling from His sight. It is God's grace that has shaped and fashioned and formed me--and His magnificent amazing grace that continues to do so.

I'm thankful today that God made me, placed within my innermost being the ability to become everything that I can be in Christ Jesus.

I'm thankful today that God gave me the choice, that the options are clear, and that He continually sets before me life and death, and urges me to choose life.

I'm thankful today that God offers His grace to me, so that when I make a good choice, I can live in the blessed rewards of taking what is right. And so that when I make a poor choice, His grace is sufficient to see me through, or deliver me out, of my self-made trouble.

Thank you Lord, for Your awesome sovereignty and your grace.