Are we not made in God's image?

Ran across yet another teaching about the lack of choice we have to be saved. Some people believe that Jesus choosing His disciples implies the disciples had no choice but to follow Jesus, and I find that fact most frustrating. We are made in God's image with all the emotions

and faculties--never the God-qualities, but His emotions and the brain functions to reason and to invent things. We create because God created. We reason because God reasons. We choose because God gave us freedom to choose.

Did not Jesus choose to go to the cross and remain upon the cross? We have the Mind of Christ as Paul testifies in 1 Corinthians 2:16. Therefore, we have that same freedom of will. Jesus speaks of it in Luke...

Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, putting to death the prophets, and stoning those who were sent to her! again and again would I have taken your children to myself, as a bird takes her young ones under her wings, but you would not!

Does the Holy Spirit not give us Spiritual gifts to use in our work? What do you think the "sin unto death" is spoken of by John in 1 John 5:16

Here is the exhibit to mankind's free will...
Matt 21:28 But what do you think? A man had two children, and coming to the first he said, Child, go today; work in my vineyard. 29 And answering, he said, I will not. But afterward, having regretted, he went. 30 And having come to the second, he said the same. And answering, he said, I go, sir; but he did not leave. 31 Which of the two did the will of the father? They said to Him, The first. Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, The tax collectors and the harlots go before you into the kingdom of God.

The prodigal son asked for and received his inheritance, spent it all and then chose of his own will to return to his father's house.

Joseph could have had Mary stoned, he could have divorced her, but he chose to bring her as wife into his home. Obey or disobey is freedom of choice and exhibits our free will.

Jesus is the Mediator I Tim 2:5... why is a mediator necessary if there is no free will?

Why is part of the Fruit of the Spirit self-control if there is no free will? (2 Tim 1:7) Why are there more than 1,000 commands in the New Testament and 613 commands in the Old Testament if there is no free will?

If we have no free will, then why is it so incredibly hard to break sinful habits? If we don't have free will and we have the Mind of Christ then sinful habits should never be formed in the first place, or if so, then we are convicted by the Holy Spirit and should give up all sinful habits through the control of God, right?

Freedom of will is the same as freedom of choice. We choose who we love, where we live, what we eat, how we react to our trials and tribulations. We choose not to suffer consequences so we obey our parents. We choose to believe God exists and believe His Word (both Jesus and the Bible), or we can choose not to believe. As in the passage from Joshua, "Choose you this day whom you will serve, as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

The Bible does not have the term "sacrificial love" nor does it have the term "unconditional love" yet it was unconditional love that sent Jesus to the cross while we were yet sinners, and it was sacrificial love that held Him to the cross. "The Trinity" is another example, yet we know God is Triune. Even though there are many terms that are not written in black and white within the pages of the Bible, we understand with the wisdom that God granted us, godly wisdom which is a gift from the Holy Spirit, that the principles are there in black and white. Our discernment of God's Word comes from above through the teaching of the Holy Spirit.