Question:    Is our life span and everything that happens to us predetermined if so can we change it?

Question:    Is our life span and everything that happens to us predetermined if so can we change it?

 

 

Dear M,

 

Answer

The short answer is NO.  God gives man free choice, we are not robots programmed to do what God wants.  If we believe that God predetermines everything, we then believe that God determines suicide, murder, rape, etc., which is completely against God’s character of love.

 

1 John 4     ⁸ He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ¹⁶ And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

 

Right in the garden of Eden God gave man a choice: stay away from the tree and live forever, or eat and die.  Adam ate and though he lived over 900 years, he started to die on the day he ate the fruit, and eventually he breathed his last. 

 

Genesis 2     ¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 

 

God gave Israel His law, and promised a longer life if they kept His commandments.

 

Deuteronomy 4: 40   You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”

 

Deuteronomy 30: 19   I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;

 

Psalm 91: 16   With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation.”

 

Proverbs 3      ¹ My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands;
       ² For length of days and long life and peace they will add to you. 
       ³ Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, 
      Write them on the tablet of your heart,

 

God wants all human beings to trust and accept Him and to be saved to live with Him forever, but He forces no-one, He gives us free choice.

 

1 Tim 2     ³ For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

 

John 3: 16   For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

 

So the bottom line is that God does not sit with a stopwatch and zap us when our time is up.  Our habits and lifestyle choices, our choice to serve Him or not, will determine our lives, and whether we will have everlasting life with Him.