“YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME!”

John 15:15-17                                  (ESV)

“15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my FATHER I have made known to you.

16 “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.

17 These things I command you, SO THAT YOU WILL LOVE ONE ANOTHER.”

There is no logical reason why a HOLY, MAJESTIC GOD should, or would, select a sinner such as I to serve HIM, for what can I possibly do for HIM?  HE literally “spoke” and everything that exists was, and HE CHOSE me out of everyone HE created to be one to spend eternity with HIM!  It is not because of anything good in me (Deuteronomy 7:7-8), but because HE loved me, just as HE loved Jacob........and hated Esau (Malachi 1:3)!

Esau was rejected by GOD, maybe because GOD (in HIS foreknowledge) knew that Esau wouldn’t love HIM?  Esau and Jacob were born from the same pregnancy.  What made GOD “choose” Jacob over Esau?  Their father, Isaac, preferred Esau because “he ate of his game” as Esau was a hunter.  Esau sold his birthright to Jacob one day when he was hungry for a bowl of stew, in an obvious admission that GOD would not supply his needs.  

Fast forward almost two thousand years and JESUS is telling HIS disciples “YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME”, but I CHOSE YOU!  Just as Esau CHOSE a bowl of stew to satisfy his hunger pains over his ancestral birthright, our EYES cannot SEE the treasure available to us unless our EYES are opened by the SPIRIT OF GOD!  We get so fixated on what we “see” is our immediate need that we become like Esau, one who says “YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME”!  

JESUS is trying to explain to us that HE is the ONE that has CHOSEN us, even before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4)!   We are NOT better than the Esau’s of our time in that we follow HIM.  “YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME” is a statement that unless HE CHOSE us that we would be damned to eternity in hell just like Esau and those like him.  “YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME” will be heard right before “DEPART, I NEVER KNEW YOU” at the Judgement Seat.  Be certain that HE HAS CHOSEN YOU before GOD says time is up!!!