“I CHOSE YOU!”

Ephesians 1:3-6                        (ESV)

“3 Blessed be the GOD and FATHER of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHO has blessed us in CHRIST with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

4 even as HE CHOSE US in HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, that we should be HOLY and blameless before HIM. In love

5 HE predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through JESUS CHRIST, according to the purpose of HIS will,

6 to the praise of HIS glorious grace, with which HE has blessed us in the Beloved.”

John 15:16                                 (ESV)

“YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME, but “I CHOSE YOU” and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the FATHER in MY name, HE may give it to you”.  

Did I CHOOSE GOD, or did HE choose me?  Ephesians 1:4 says “HE CHOSE US in HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, that we should be HOLY and blameless before HIM”.  1 Peter 2:9 says “But YOU ARE A CHOSEN RACE, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of HIM WHO CALLED YOU OUT of darkness into HIS marvelous light”.  Since GOD CHOSE me before the foundation of the world, I must have had nothing to do with being selected, for “HE CHOSE ME”!  

Why would HE CHOOSE ME, out of the multitudes of people HE has created?  Deuteronomy 7:6-7 explains it rather succinctly, “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. 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, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt”.  

All I can say is that GOD must save the least to demonstrate that HE is a loving, gracious and forgiving GOD WHO CHOOSES to redeem the seemingly unredeemable.  The Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to Timothy, verse 15 of the first chapter, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that CHRIST JESUS came into the world to save sinners, OF WHOM I AM THE FOREMOST”.  

GOD CHOSE me, even though I am the least deserving, the greatest of sinners!  HE CHOSE me to display HIS love to others and to be used by HIM in whatever way HE deems best. HIS WORD says “I CHOSE YOU” to be a witness of MY love for others, because it took the LOVE of GOD to reach me in the depths of my sin!