I’m sure God is very good at predicting what decisions we’ll make in each situation we find ourselves in. Does he actually know ahead of time what decisions we’ll make?
Yes, God is omniscient and I believe the Bible teaches he knows all, including the decisions we will make before we make them. That doesn’t mean that he takes away our freewill, but I do think that, like a parent who can often foresee quite clearly what will happen with a child’s behavior or decision they make, God sees what we will choose and what will happen. But I also believe, like a good parent, he is there with open arms to receive us, support us, teach us, and gently set us back on the right track.
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What happens if we stubbornly persist in wrong-doing?
The Bible warns that sin is addictive; the more you persist in it, the less it bothers you. It creates a feedback loop that dulls your spiritual hearing. Hebrews 3:13 says,
“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Eventually, persistent wrongdoing leads to what Paul calls a “seared conscience” 1 Timothy 4:2. The internal alarm system that tells you right from wrong stops ringing entirely.
It damages or questions one’s relationship with God. The New Testament draws a sharp line between a believer who occasionally fails and someone who deliberately walks in continuous wrongdoing. The Apostle John tackles this directly in his first letter
“No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:6-8
Persistent wrongdoing breaks fellowship with God. It serves as a warning sign that a person may have intellectual head-knowledge of God, but lacks a true, transforming relationship with Him.
For those who claim to be believers but refuse to stop doing wrong, God intervenes out of love, but that intervention can be incredibly painful. For those who completely reject God and persist anyway, the final warning is absolute. Hebrews 12:6 says this.
" For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives."
If a believer persists in wrongdoing, God will allow them to hit rock bottom or face severe consequences to bring them to repentance. What about the willful rebel (Judgement):
" For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." Hebrews 10:26-27
The Bible states that God cannot be fooled by outward religious actions if a person’s life is defined by ongoing wrongdoing.
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Galatians 6:7-8
Persistent wrongdoing eventually catches up to a person in this life through broken relationships, lost peace, and physical or emotional ruin. Even as a Child of God, we must be careful.
Peter
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That’s absolutely correct. Omniscient means all knowing so that was easy. God is also omnipresent which means everywhere at once and at every time. So as we make our bad decision, God is already there listening to us ask forgiveness for the bad decision that we made.
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I think God is always trying to woo us back to him while we are on this earth. Sometimes (oftentimes) he uses trials and rock bottom situations. Sometimes we need to get to that place to truly recognize our need for him and acknowledge how we have been living without him.
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Scripture teaches God’s omniscience, that is, that God knows himself and all things in creation exhaustively and from eternity past. This is a function of God’s lordship over all things. God’s knowledge of all things extends to the past, present, and future, encompassing even the actions of free agents. This does not destroy the freedom of humanity, but instead defines it more carefully as a compatibilist freedom rather than a libertarian freedom. Humans are not free to do anything without constraint but are constrained by their desires, circumstances, natures, and, ultimately, God. Openness theology denies all of this; where Arminian theology only denies that we have compatibilist freedom in favor of libertarian freedom, Openness theology denies that God even knows what we will do. Openness theologians argue that it is logically inconsistent to say that God knows in advance what someone would freely do in a libertarian sense. Openness theology is not new but is essentially a relabeled Socianism, a heresy that was condemned in the 16th century.
Scripture affirms that God’s knowledge of himself and of the world is exhaustive:
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. (Ps. 147:5)
(Peter) said to (Jesus), “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Heb. 4:12–13)
For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:20)
God knows all about the starry heavens (Gen. 15:5; Ps. 147:4; Isa. 40:26; Jer. 33:22) and the tiniest details of the natural world (Pss. 50:10–11; 56:8; Matt. 10:30). God’s knowledge is absolute knowledge, and so it elicits religious praise (Ps. 139:17–18; Isa. 40:28; Rom. 11:33–36). Wicked people often think that God will not notice what they do, but they will find that God does know, and that he will certainly condemn their sin (Ps. 10:11; 11:4; 73:11; 94:7; Isa. 29:15, 40:27; 47:10; Jer. 16:17–18; Ezek. 8:12). To the righteous, however, God’s knowledge is a blessing of the covenant (Exod. 2:23–25; 3:7–9; 1 Kgs. 18:27; 2 Chron. 16:9; Pss. 33:18–20; 34:15–16; 38:9; 145:20; Matt. 6:32). He knows what is happening to them, he hears their prayer, and he will certainly answer.
God knows everything because he is the Lord of all. He made the heavens and the earth, and he knows his own plan for its history (Eph. 1:11). He has control over all things (Rom. 11:36), his judgments of truth have ultimate authority (John 17:17), and he is present everywhere to observe what is happening (Ps. 139). The theological term omniscience refers to God’s exhaustive knowledge of himself and of the creation.
God’s Knowledge of the Future
His omniscience includes knowledge of the past, present, and future. His knowledge of the past and present is clear from the texts cited above. Scripture is equally clear in teaching God’s knowledge of the future. Note, for example, this part of the definition of prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:21–22:
And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’ – when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
In this passage, part of the work of the prophet (appointed by God to bring his word to the people) is to foretell the future. If he claims to foretell the future, and that prophecy fails, then the people may conclude that he is a false prophet. The assumption behind this provision is that God knows the future, and therefore any true prophet will predict the future accurately.
Knowledge of the future is not only the test of a true prophet. It is also the test of a true God. In the contest between Yahweh, Israel’s lord, and the false gods of the ancient Near East, a major issue is which God knows the future. This is a frequent theme in Isaiah 40–49, a passage that focuses on the sovereignty of Yahweh over against the absurd pretensions of the false gods:
Set forth your case, says the LORD; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified. (Isa. 41:– 23)
True prophets announce the future: not only momentous events like the coming of the Messiah (Isa. 9:6–7; 11:1-9), but also very concrete and specific events of the near future (1 Sam. 10:1–11). These passages indicate that God has a knowledge in advance, even of free human decisions. That is also true of prophecies that indicate the broad structure of human history. An example is God’s promise to Abraham:
J.
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Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” (Gen. 15:13–16)
This general prediction presupposes an indefinite number of more specific future facts: that Abraham will have many descendants, that they will migrate to lands with unfriendly rulers, that the rulers of the nations will afflict them, that these afflictions will end after four hundred years, and so on. These events result from many free human decisions: by the rulers, by Abraham’s offspring, by the Amorites, and so on. This prophecy of great redemptive-historical events is also a prediction of many free actions by many people. The biblical picture here is that God knows the future exhaustively, meticulously, in every detail.
The prophetic prediction of free human actions is found in many other passages (see Gen. 27:27–29, 39–40; 49:11; Num. 23–24; Deut. 32:1–43; 33:1-29; 1 Sam. 23:11; 1 Kings 13:1–4; 2 Kings 8:12). God knows everything we will say or do, before we say or do it (Ps 139:4, 16). He knew the prophet Jeremiah before his conception (Jer. 1:5). That implies that he knew in advance who would marry whom in Israel, and all the various combinations of sperm and egg that would lead to the conception of this one individual. Many free human decisions led to Jeremiah’s conception, and the lord knew them all.
In the New Testament, Jesus teaches that his Father knows the day and hour of his return (Mark 13:32). But that day will not come until after other events have taken place—events that depend on free human decisions (13:1–30). Jesus also predicted that Judas would betray him (John 6:64; 13:18–19), though Judas certainly made his wicked decision freely and responsibly.
Openness Theology
The view of divine omniscience summarized above has been the traditional view of orthodox Christianity—Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant. But some within the church have questioned it. Among these were Lelio (1525-62) and Fausto (1539-1604) Socinus. Robert Strimple describes their view as follows, contrasting it with Arminianism:
Arminianism denies that God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass but wishes nevertheless to affirm God’s foreknowledge of whatever comes to pass. Against the Arminians, the Socinians insisted that logically the Calvinists were quite correct in insisting that the only real basis for believing that God knows what you are going to do next is to believe that he has foreordained what you are going to do next. How else could God know ahead of time what your decision will be? Like the Arminians, however, the Socinians insisted that it was a contradiction of human freedom to believe in the sovereign foreordination of God. So they went “all the way” (logically) and denied not only that God had foreordained the free decisions of free agents but also that God foreknows what those decisions will be (see “What Does God Know?” in The Coming Evangelical Crisis, 140-41).
In the later part of the twentieth century, a movement sprung up, associated with Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, Gregory Boyd, John Sanders and others, called by such names as “open theism,” “free will theism,” and “openness theology.” Strimple compares their teaching to that of the Socinians:
(The Socinian doctrine) is precisely the teaching of the “free will theism” of Pinnock, Rice, and other like-minded “new model evangelicals.” They want their doctrine of God to sound very “new,” very modern, by dressing it up with references to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in physics and to the insights of process theology (although they reject process theology as a whole…). But it is just the old Socinian heresy rejected by the church centuries ago.
As Strimple suggests, openness theology sees itself primarily as a defense of human free will. There are various understandings of human freedom in theological discussion. One view, called “compatibilism,” asserts that we are free whenever we can do what we want to do. To be free is to act according to what you desire. On this view, it doesn’t matter whether your decision is caused or necessitated. The term “compatibilism,” in fact, indicates that freedom is compatible with causes and constraints. As long as you can choose to do what you want to do, your choice is free.
The other meaning of freedom commonly discussed in theology is “libertarian” freedom. On a libertarian basis, your decisions are free only insofar as they are not caused or constrained by anything at all. If your choice is made necessary—by your own desire, your nature, your inclinations, someone else’s power over you, or even God—your decision is not free. Libertarian freedom is sometimes called “incompatibilism,” because it is incompatible with any kind of causation.
J.
Do we need to recognize our need for God, or do we need to recognize our need to obey God?
I would say both. Recognizing our need for God is the starting point of faith. It begins with humility. Acknowledging our own limitations, brokenness, and dependency on a Creator.
Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:3. To be “poor in spirit” means recognizing absolute spiritual bankruptcy without God.
In John 15:5, Jesus uses a vivid analogy for dependency: “I am the vine; you are the branches… apart from me you can do nothing.”
If recognizing our need for God is the heart of faith, obedience is the hands and feet. In the Bible, love and belief are never purely abstract ideas; they are always action verbs. Obedience is how our recognized need for God is expressed and lived out.
" And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." 1 Samuel 15:22
Jesus explicitly ties affection to action in John 14:15: “If you love me, keep my commands.”
The Book of James heavily emphasizes that internal belief must manifest externally, famously stating that “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” James 2:17
If we only recognize our need for God but ignore obedience, we treat God like a cosmic safety net rather than a Sovereign Lord. On the flip side, if we try to obey without recognizing our need for Him, we fall into legalism, or trying to earn our way by our own strength. By recognizing our need for Him actually gives us the power to obey Him. They are two sides of the very same coin.
Peter
Interesting. Faith without action is dead, and love is expressed by the action of obedience.
Talking about it can be sincere and perhaps comforting but ultimately they are only words. Does the wife know that her husband loves her because he speaks the words 7 times a day? No. She knows he loves her because he acts for her. Acts of service, surprise gifts, would you like to go on vacation? That’s how she knows. Makes perfect sense.
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DaughterOfEve24 re: “Yes, God is omniscient and I believe the Bible teaches he knows all, including the decisions we will make before we make them.”
Does He have any input in the creation of a person? And if so, does He know before the person is created whether or not He will eventually be casting the person into the lake of fire?
Please understand that God does not cause anybody to go to hell. Rather, man chooses to go there on his own. You can see the progression of those who reject Christ in the first three chapters of the book of Romans. The wrath of God is revealed against the unrighteous because man rejects the Creator and worships the creation (Romans 1:18–20). Men profess to be wise in their own eyes (Romans 1:22) and exchange the glory of God for created things (Romans 1:23–25). These people then continue in a downward spiral of sin that is listed in Romans 1:28–31, sins to which all of us can relate. Not only do they participate in these sins, but they also approve of those who do them (Romans 1:32).
Not only do humans have the creation of the world to see God’s power, but they also have their consciences convicting them of their sin (Romans 2:14–15). In the end, people are left without excuse. We deserve to die for our sins, and we stand condemned in front of God.
Jesus Christ came in the flesh so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). This is another witness to God’s existence and also stands to condemn those who choose to reject Christ as the Son of God. Because Christ came to pay the price of sin, and He came to make the Father known (John 1:18), people have no excuse for rejecting Him.
People choose to go to hell because they reject Christ, not because God causes them to go there. God has paid the price, revealed Himself to all, and now humans are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20). God allows people to be born to give them the opportunity to believe, but it is a person’s responsibility to make that choice. What kind of God would He be if He did not give people the opportunity to place faith in the Lord?
This is still a very difficult concept to grasp. We can only cling to what we know about God’s nature and character, trust that His sovereignty and mercy do not contradict one another, and believe that everything He does and/or allows will ultimately be for His glory. We submit ourselves to Him in worship and obedience and trust that He “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:11) and that His ways are perfect, even when we don’t understand them. “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4).
You agree @rstrats?
J.
Johann,
re: “Please understand that God does not cause anybody to go to hell.”
You left out the important part of my question, i.e., “Does He have any input in the creation of a person?”
Certainly. God is the Creator of every person (Psalm 139:13-16). I don’t think anyone here is denying that.
Matthew 25:41, 46
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
…
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Revelation 20:11-15
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Revelation 14:9-11
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night…
2 Thessalonians 1:7-9
And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
Romans 2:5-8
But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath.
Psalm 89:14
Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.
Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
Nahum 1:2-3
God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked…
Romans 9:22-23
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.
A careful distinction should be made, however.
Scripture clearly teaches:
God is good, holy, and just.
God judges sin.
The wicked face eternal punishment.
Hell demonstrates God’s justice.
But Scripture does not explicitly say:
“God’s goodness depends upon the existence of hell.”
I believe your question has been answered @rstrats. My apologies for the edit.
J.
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@BobEstey, I believe the Scriptures describe a mystery that God has a plan in which he ALLOWS evil decisions to happen and enables his people to make good decisions resulting in their blessings. His permissive plan keeps him from any blame for evil.
However, the other side of the mystery is that humans have FULL responsibility for all their actions. Joseph in Genesis 50 said it well to his brothers, who had sold him into slavery,
Gen 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
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The Lord allows us to make evil decisions. At the same time, he protects us, to some degree, from each other’s evil decisions. That would make him smarter than me.
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Me too, @BobEstey, me too!
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By Arthur W Pink
Arthur W. Pink, born in Great Britain in 1886, immigrated to the U.S. to study at Moody Bible Institute. He pastored churches in Colorado, California, Kentucky, and South Carolina before becoming an itinerant Bible teacher in 1919. He returned to his native land in 1934., taking up residence on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, in 1940 and remaining there until his death twelve years later. Most of his works first appeared as articles in the monthly Studies in the Scriptures, published from 1922 to 1952.
WHAT CONTROVERSIES have been engendered by this subject in the past! But what truth of Holy Scripture is there which has not been made the occasion of theological and ecclesiastical battles? The deity of Christ, His virgin birth, His atoning death, His second advent; the believer’s justification, sanctification, security; the church, its organization, officers, discipline; baptism, the Lord’s supper and a score of other precious truths might be mentioned.
Yet, the controversies which have been waged over them did not close the mouths of God’s faithful servants; why, then, should we avoid the vexing question of God’s Foreknowledge, because, forsooth, there are some who will charge us with fomenting strife? Let others contend if they will, our duty is to bear witness according to the light vouchsafed us.
There are two things concerning the Foreknowledge of God about which many are in ignorance: the meaning of the term, its Scriptural scope. Because this ignorance is so widespread, it is an easy matter for preachers and teachers to palm off perversions of this subject, even upon the people of God. There is only one safeguard against error, and that is to be established in the faith; and for that, there has to be prayerful and diligent study, and a receiving with meekness the engrafted Word of God.
Only then are we fortified against the attacks of those who assail us. There are those today who are misusing this very truth in order to discredit and deny the absolute sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners. Just as higher critics are repudiating the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures; evolutionists, the work of God in creation; so some pseudo Bible teachers are perverting His foreknowledge in order to set aside His unconditional election unto eternal life.
When the solemn and blessed subject of Divine foreordination is expounded, when God’s eternal choice of certain ones to be conformed to the image of His Son is set forth, the Enemy sends along some man to argue that election is based upon the foreknowledge of God, and this “foreknowledge” is interpreted to mean that God foresaw certain ones would be more pliable than others, that they would respond more readily to the strivings of the Spirit, and that because God knew they would believe, He accordingly, predestinated them unto salvation. But such a statement is radically wrong.
It repudiates the truth of total depravity, for it argues that there is something good in some men. It takes away the independency of God, for it makes His decrees rest upon what He discovers in the creature.
It completely turns things upside down, for in saying God foresaw certain sinners would believe in Christ, and that because of this, He predestinated them unto salvation, is the very reverse of the truth.
Scripture affirms that God, in His high sovereignty, singled out certain ones to be recipients of His distinguishing favours (Acts 13:48), and therefore He determined to bestow upon them the gift of faith. False theology makes God’s foreknowledge of our believing the cause of His election to salvation; whereas, God’s election is the cause, and our believing in Christ is the effect.
J.
I third that. I did just want to jump in for a second.
Of course. God created you in a very specific way, in a very specific, planned-out, conscientious way. The Word declares this in Psalm 139,
"For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.Your eyes saw my substance,
being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them."
God took the time to number the very hairs on your Head (Luke 12:7). You are 6’5" of 5’ tall. You are blonde, brunette, or redhead. You have brown eyes or blue. You are who God created you to be. I can hear some questioning things like, “So if someone is born without legs, that is God’s plan?”
I want to share a quick story with you. It is a bit extreme, but follow along. There was a man who was born with no legs. His parents were distraught. The father had a hard time dealing with this. The baby grew and became a boy, and then became a man. Meanwhile, in a war, a soldier loses his legs when he steps on an explosive. He was confused and depressed. Not knowing if it was worth it to go on. A former football player, now all he sees himself as is a cripple.
One day, the soldier was lying in bed, wishing he had just died, when the man with no legs came into the room. In time, they became friends, and the man with no legs taught the soldier that life is just fine without legs.
The point of the story is this. Neither the man nor his parents sinned against God. Remember the story of the blind man?
" As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” John 9:1-3
Like the blind man, the man with no legs was born that way. He never cared about not having legs. He was born that way. To him, that was normal. But because of him, this soldier and many other people in accidents, etc., have been helped, and perhaps even saved. Was it bad for the man to be born with no legs?
Along with your physical attributes, God also gave you certain Gifts and or Skills. You know what you are good at. Some people are people persons. Some love math and numbers. Some LOVE science. I love science. Some absolutely love building things. The key to living a content Life is doing what you LOVE doing.
I have known people in life who spend their entire lives trying to stay one foot out of the grave. They work 10 plus hours a day. They made 19 million dollars this year, but they are obsessed with making $20 million next year. Their 401 K is fat. Their bank Account is fat. Yet? It is not enough. They need more. So what are they on their third marriage? So what, they were never there to see their Kids grow up? Gotta make that money.
Fast forward. Deathbed. Not to be morbid. What are they saying? They are not saying "I wish I had made that extra million. No. They say they regret NOT being there for their kids. For their wives. For their families. The sad truth is, it is usually only in the end that they learn the truth
Does God knowing what you will do change the outcome? Of course not. Did He choose you, because He knows? Perhaps. I really do not know. This I know, be the Child of God, who God calls you to be, and you do not ever have to worry about that.
Peter