00:00:02 You and I make a lot of decisions every day.
00:00:04 Now, some have a little impact on our lives;
00:00:07 others have a very big impact.
00:00:10 And we can appreciate that we can make choices and decisions for ourselves.
00:00:15 Think of how life would be if you made no decisions for yourself
00:00:19 —someone tells you when to go to bed,
00:00:22 they pick out your clothes, and they tell you what to do for work.
00:00:25 Well, none of us would like that!
00:00:28 Jehovah gave each of us free will,
00:00:31 and that’s the precious gift of making choices for ourselves.
00:00:36 Now, have you ever thought about why Jehovah gave us this gift?
00:00:39 I mean, why trust us with free will
00:00:42 when he knew that we could make bad choices or decisions?
00:00:46 Well, one powerful reason is love.
00:00:49 The only way to give us the gift of love
00:00:52 is also to give us the gift of free will.
00:00:55 The two are tied together.
00:00:57 You really can’t have one without the other.
00:01:01 For example, if I programmed my computer
00:01:04 to give me a message every day at 2:00 p.m.: “John, I love you.
00:01:07 I think you’re a wonderful guy,”
00:01:09 I think there’d be a little something wrong with me
00:01:12 if I thought: ‘Aw, isn’t that nice?
00:01:14 My computer, it loves me.’
00:01:17 Yeah, love only exists
00:01:19 if it comes truly from a free-will expression.
00:01:23 Now, did Jehovah place any boundaries on free will?
00:01:28 Yes.
00:01:29 They were stated in the Law to the nation of Israel.
00:01:32 And Jesus later repeated them
00:01:34 at Matthew 22:37-40:
00:01:41 “He said to him: ‘“You must love Jehovah your God
00:01:44 “‘“with your whole heart and with your whole soul
00:01:48 “‘and with your whole mind.”
00:01:50 “‘This is the greatest and first commandment.
00:01:53 “‘The second, like it, is this:
00:01:55 “‘“You must love your neighbor as yourself.”
00:01:58 “‘On these two commandments the whole Law hangs,
00:02:02 and the Prophets.’”
00:02:04 So our use of free will
00:02:07 has love of God and love of neighbor as its boundaries.
00:02:12 Notice, for example, what people are doing in this picture,
00:02:16 both inside the circle boundary
00:02:20 and outside.
00:02:22 See, free will allows us to do any of the things
00:02:24 we see in the picture.
00:02:26 But love of God and love of neighbor
00:02:28 move us to reject what’s outside the circle
00:02:31 and choose to do the kinds of things that we see inside the circle.
00:02:36 Now, to stay within those boundaries,
00:02:39 Jehovah gave us a marvelous brain
00:02:41 and a built-in conscience,
00:02:43 but he also knows we need more help.
00:02:45 And that’s why he also gave us Bible principles
00:02:49 —basic truths from the Bible
00:02:52 that can help us to make good decisions.
00:02:55 And it can safely be said that any decision we face
00:02:58 can be guided by Bible principles.
00:03:02 Now, our Creator, Jehovah, knows what’s best for us.
00:03:05 And he also trusts us to make decisions
00:03:08 based on Bible principles
00:03:11 because he knows that when we do that,
00:03:13 then we’re really, truly going to be happy, content,
00:03:17 and at peace with him and with others.
00:03:20 So in review so far: Jehovah gave us free will
00:03:25 —that’s the privilege to make choices for ourselves—
00:03:28 and he also gave us Bible principles
00:03:31 as the boundaries to our choices.
00:03:36 But making difficult decisions requires that we train ourselves
00:03:40 to recognize Bible principles and apply them.
00:03:44 Now let’s read Romans 12:1,
00:03:49 and let’s see how this verse describes
00:03:52 the decision-making process.
00:03:55 “Therefore, I appeal to you
00:03:58 “by the compassions of God, brothers,
00:04:00 “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
00:04:04 “holy and acceptable to God,
00:04:06 “a sacred service
00:04:08 with your power of reason.”
00:04:12 So are we using our “power of reason”
00:04:16 to understand Bible principles?
00:04:19 For example, young children ask lots of questions.
00:04:24 But has a child ever asked you: “What happens when I drop a ball?
00:04:28 a pencil? a book?”
00:04:31 No, they don’t ask that.
00:04:33 They know what happens to anything they drop.
00:04:35 It falls down!
00:04:37 See, the child doesn’t need rules for every object
00:04:40 but has quickly grasped the principle.
00:04:43 Anything he drops falls down.
00:04:47 Now, what if an 18-year-old asked you,
00:04:50 “What’s going to happen when I drop this pen?”
00:04:54 Well, it’s obvious he’s not been paying attention
00:04:57 to basic principles of life.
00:05:00 So by us paying attention to Bible principles,
00:05:03 we can very quickly see the pattern
00:05:06 of love of God and love of neighbor
00:05:10 and know the right thing to do
00:05:12 without a long list of rules for every situation.
00:05:18 Well, how can we train our “power of reason”?
00:05:21 We train it by paying attention
00:05:24 as we read and study the Bible.
00:05:28 Now, we don’t need rules for which movies to watch,
00:05:31 which songs to listen to,
00:05:33 or what clothes we can wear.
00:05:35 If we’re paying attention when we’re reading the Bible,
00:05:39 we train our conscience with Bible principles
00:05:43 so we can make such decisions without needing a long list of rules.