“GOD HAS CHOSEN YOU!”

 

Deuteronomy 7:1-2                                 (ESV)

A Chosen People

“[1] “When the LORD your GOD brings you into the land that you are entering TO TAKE POSSESSION OF IT, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, [2] and when the LORD your GOD gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.”

Deuteronomy 7:6-8                             (ESV)

“[6] “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. [7] 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, [8] 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.”

One of the most disappointing times in my life was “trying out” for a little league baseball team when I was a boy.  I didn’t own a baseball glove, so I was left with borrowing one when it was time to field.  I was told that I would be telephoned about which team CHOSE me, but I never received a call.  In the mid 1960’s, it wasn’t unheard of for a “wannabe” player to be “unchosen”.  Apparently I wasn’t a good enough player to get selected and there wasn’t anyone to tell me that I had failed, so I was left to wallow in my despair!

Not being CHOSEN was seemingly traumatic as a boy, but can you fathom NOT being selected to play on a team where the coach is the HOLY SPIRIT?  ALMIGHTY GOD has the unmistakable and uncanny ability to CHOOSE us, while “the enemy” wants to make us Believe that we chose to serve HIM?  The passage of Scripture above PLAINLY paints a different picture.  GOD ALMIGHTY CHOSE ME, I didn’t choose HIM!  As humans, we do NOT have the intellect, the Holiness, nor the Goodness to be able to even LOVE the LORD!  Yet THE LORD LOVES YOU and my relationship with HIM is the ONLY thing that keeps me out of the pit of self ridicule and destruction.  

“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” is one of the MOST BEAUTIFUL verses of Scripture in the Bible!  Out of HIS entire CREATION, GOD could have selected someone far more obedient, far better looking, and drastically more HOLY than me to “represent” HIM!  But HE selected me to be HIS TREASURED POSSESSION out of ALL (2 Corinthians 5:5) HIS CREATION!  

When a young boy is NOT CHOSEN in a little league baseball tryout, the feeling can be overcome and moved on from.  It is a grim realization that when GOD’s CREATION isn’t CHOSEN the outcome is vastly more impactful!  “GOD HAS CHOSEN YOU” has to be one of the most important verses of Scripture?  One of my favorite Biblical people, the Apostle Paul, writes in 1 Timothy 1:15 “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”!  In spite of our unworthiness, “GOD HAS CHOSEN YOU” even though we might not be worthy!  However, HIS SON, WHO lives inside of us, is WORTHY!!!