Okay, we all know that God is sovereign! He has the right and ability to rule over all of creation, to do with it as He wishes. After all most of creation was done by Him simply commanding, speaking it into existence. I say most because man was different, God formed mankind with his own hands, then breathed life into him. There is a clear distinction between the creation of man and all the rest of creation as it exists.
God created mankind in His own image. That doesn’t mean that we look like Him, but rather we are like Him in spirit. Things that set us apart from all other created living things. Creativity, Communication, Desire, Love.
Yes, mankind is God’s special creation, we also do things, act differently from all of creation. The Bible teaches that all of creation glorifies God, all of creation speaks to His existence. All of creation is created to do just this, all except man. We have been given a choice to decide weather or not we will gorily our creator, again a special privilege.
Adam and Eve were given a special place to live. In this special place were places two trees that were also special. One of the trees was forbidden to them for food. To eat the fruit of that tree would be to disobey God, to sin. This was the first choice given to mankind. It was a simple choice, to leave the fruit alone, or to eat it. It didn’t take long for a poor choice to take place. Was this God’s doing? Was it Eve’s doing? Was it Adams doing? We have been living with the consequences of that one bad decision for the rest of our history, and we will continue to live with it for the rest of history future, until God brings the history of earth to an end.
Genesis 3:1-3 The question is put to Eve do you eat of the forbidden fruit or not? Is God holding out on you? We like to blame Eve for this poor decision, but if you read on Adam must have been standing there with her and he offered no resistance to her trying it. The decision was made by both of them. The consequences of making a poor decision did not delay long in coming. God Put them out of the garden, killed animals in order to clothe them, and started the clock of death that would come. Did She exercise her free will to eat of the fruit, did Adam? Yes!
God sometimes hardens a persons will, usually to force a point to be clearly understood. We see this clearly in the case of Pharaoh while Moses was trying to get him to set the people of Israel free in Exodus. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that He, God, could show the entire world that He is who He says He is and will do what He says He’ll do.
We have the will to obey or not to obey God. Joshua near the end of his life told the people of Israel to make up their minds who they would serve. They had seen God work mighty works, but still some dabbled in sin. Joshua 24:14-15
We have the will to believe him or not to believe him. Jesus gives us the same teaching. John 3 Jesus explains to Nicodemus, a learned man in the scriptures, that one must believe on Jesus to attain everlasting life. This is your privilege, to believe on not to believe. There is no other created thing that has this privilege. Will you believe Him? Will you live?