Transcripts: Enjoy Life Forever!

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