This week’s devotions are based on Week 1 of the Series Ephesians: Becoming Who You Are (CLICK HERE)
Ephesians 1:3-4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
God chose us.
We have all experienced being chosen. When you are selected for the kickball team or the promotion at work there is a sense of joy and satisfaction. However, most of the “choosing” we have experienced is probably based on some performance factor determined by the one choosing. If you are chosen for the sports team, it’s probably because you have skills in that sport. If you are chosen for a job, it is probably because your experience and skill set are a good match for the new position.
So it would be easy to transfer this human experience of being chosen to God’s decision to choose us. In fact, many have tried to understand God’s choosing based on his foreknowledge of what he knew would happen…i.e. He chose us because he knew we would believe or he chose us because he knew we would have strong works of faith.
This then makes the teaching of election or predestination a teaching of personal effort that warrants the choosing of God and the mercy of God.
This is a deviant lie of Satan and satisfies the sinful pride of our hearts that wants to claim in some way the mercy of God is based on our merit.
The fact that God would choose us is one of the strongest testimonies to his grace the Bible proclaims. It leads us to marvel that we were in the mind of God before the creation of the world and he orchestrated an amazing plan in time to communicate to our hearts the message of the Gospel and work faith in our heart to believe it. This fact of being chosen by God is simply a strong testimony to the love of God that would want us to be part of his family…apart from and in spite of our sinful performance we exhibit each and every day.
How could he do this?
Because his choosing of us was done “in him” not “in us.” He chose us IN HIM….to be holy and blameless. Who is the “him”? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of all. God in eternity had planned the saving work of Jesus and orchestrated the connection of that work to our hearts. Only because Jesus lived, died and rose again could God’s choosing be possible. Only through Jesus does any sinner, including you and me, have any ability to carry the status of “holy and blameless” in the sight of God.
Here’s an excerpt from an article written by John Piper, a baptist pastor who also is Calvinist (and not always congruent with the Bible’s teaching on predestination, but I thought this was well worded:
- Therefore, the basis of God choosing you is not in you, but in grace.
Take God’s Old Testament people Israel, for example. Why did God set his favor on Israel above all the peoples of the earth? What was the basis of God’s calling them “my chosen” (Isaiah 45:4)? Here’s Moses’s answer:
The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers. (Deuteronomy 7:6–8)
This is amazing: “The Lord set his love on you and chose you . . . because the Lord loves you.” He loves you because he loves you! That’s the deepest, and ultimate, basis of God’s choosing Israel.
Paul underlines the wonder. Why was Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel, chosen over his twin brother Esau? Paul answers, “Though they were not yet born, and had done nothing either good or bad — in order that God’s purpose to choose might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls — their mother was told, ‘The older will serve the younger’” (Romans 9:11–12).
And the principle holds today. Paul would say, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). So it is with every true Christian. Behind our believing — behind our coming to Jesus — is grace alone. There is no ground for our being chosen beneath the all-wise and incomprehensible love of God. Oh, the vastness of the repercussions of this unfathomable truth! 1
Enjoy the status of being chosen…knowing the simple reason you were chosen is because God loves you!
Apply: Think of a time you were chosen. How did you feel? Was it based on your performance or simply because the person wanted you? How does it feel to be chosen by God?
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for your profound grace and mercy that would choose me to be holy and blameless in your sight through Jesus, my Savior. AMEN.
- https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/ten-reasons-to-revel-in-being-chosen