(Finally able to start getting back to this.)
[video=youtube;jtIEYjNZgiU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtIEYjNZgiU[/video]
This is was a song from my youth. It's close. I don't think it's accurate. We are/were slaves to sin. That's what we're born into. And slaves to sin is slaves to Satan. No influence, albeit, very influential. It controlled us. And we bowed down to it. We loved it, (again, because in the darkness we can hide our sin... at least, that's what we thought we were doing.) It worked for us.
But it stole from us too. You're right. We are designed to be God's. To do what God would have us do -- love and worship him. We're like terra cotta pots made for honey. (I know. Most the time people go with good wine or olive oil, but I don't particularly like wine, and olive oil is to be used in small quantities. Honey. Honey! You just can't go wrong with too much honey. lol) Instead we filled ourselves up with vinegar, (sin), thinking vinegar filled us, protected us, and satisfied us.
The thing with terra cotta as a material is that it absorbed what's in it into its very structure. Liquids leach into it and can't be pulled out. Well, technically, they can, but it's so much work, it's not worth the effort. Easier just to get a new pot.
We were made for the honey that is God, yet we filled ourselves with sin/vinegar. Worthless! Broken!
So who chose to fix us? We were too full of vinegar to know we were useless. We wanted to be useless. (John 3:19-20 again.) Only answer is God, right? (John 3:21, for verification.)
He didn't choose just some? He chose all? Then please explain Judas, Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Pharaoh, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussien, Bin Laden, etc.
His Word says over an over about "the chosen." "The elect." Was he fooling?
How were you saved? By your choice or by Jesus himself? Because Jesus also said this:
John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
The Lord chose some terra cotta pots of vinegar and washed them clean for their true purpose -- his honey.
It's important, because if salvation is through your choice, than you never needed Jesus. If you never needed Jesus, you never needed to be saved.
Be careful with that "free will gospel." People use it to prove they're worth being saved. We're just terra cotta pots. What's inside is what makes us worth anything.