40 Days of Praise - Day 26
Day 26
“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.”
John 15:16
Embracing Jesus Christ, as Savior and Lord is the culmination of a journey for most of us. After we place our trust in the Lord, after we receive him and receive new life from him, most of us think back, asking ourselves, “How did I get here?”
I can remember finding a little gospel booklet entitled “the end of the world”. After reading it, I was aware that God was holy and I was not. I was going to go to hell if I died. But I was only 12 or 13 and so I didn’t think about it any further right then. It was two years later than I had the gospel explained to me. And that’s when I received the Lord Jesus as my savior.
It’s clear that I had a choice in accepting the Lord. But what Jesus says in our verse today is that he chose me; I did not choose him. And that’s surprising, because it sure felt like I chose him.
But as we saw a couple of days ago, Zaccheaus climbed the Sycamore tree because he was seeking Jesus. What he was unaware of, however, was that he was inclined to climb the tree because Jesus was seeking him.
It’s the same with us. Ephesians 2:1 tells us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We had no spiritual sensitivity. Consequently, we could not choose the Lord because the part of us that would have been sensitive to our need for him was already dead. One of the mysteries of God’s saving work in us is that he must make the first move for us to be able to respond.
Eventually, that raises the question in our minds, why did God choose us? Why me? And the answer to that is found in the word “choose“. John wrote his gospel in the Greek language, which was the common language of his day. And the word he used for choose is one that clearly means the choice was made by the chooser, and had nothing to do with the quality of the one being chosen. There was nothing in us to warrant or earn being chosen, he, for his own reasons, chose us. In multiple places, we are told that the reason is because he loved us. He loved us for no good reason that we can come up with. He loved us because he loves.
“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Charles M. Butler
“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.”
John 15:16
Embracing Jesus Christ, as Savior and Lord is the culmination of a journey for most of us. After we place our trust in the Lord, after we receive him and receive new life from him, most of us think back, asking ourselves, “How did I get here?”
I can remember finding a little gospel booklet entitled “the end of the world”. After reading it, I was aware that God was holy and I was not. I was going to go to hell if I died. But I was only 12 or 13 and so I didn’t think about it any further right then. It was two years later than I had the gospel explained to me. And that’s when I received the Lord Jesus as my savior.
It’s clear that I had a choice in accepting the Lord. But what Jesus says in our verse today is that he chose me; I did not choose him. And that’s surprising, because it sure felt like I chose him.
But as we saw a couple of days ago, Zaccheaus climbed the Sycamore tree because he was seeking Jesus. What he was unaware of, however, was that he was inclined to climb the tree because Jesus was seeking him.
It’s the same with us. Ephesians 2:1 tells us that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We had no spiritual sensitivity. Consequently, we could not choose the Lord because the part of us that would have been sensitive to our need for him was already dead. One of the mysteries of God’s saving work in us is that he must make the first move for us to be able to respond.
Eventually, that raises the question in our minds, why did God choose us? Why me? And the answer to that is found in the word “choose“. John wrote his gospel in the Greek language, which was the common language of his day. And the word he used for choose is one that clearly means the choice was made by the chooser, and had nothing to do with the quality of the one being chosen. There was nothing in us to warrant or earn being chosen, he, for his own reasons, chose us. In multiple places, we are told that the reason is because he loved us. He loved us for no good reason that we can come up with. He loved us because he loves.
“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Charles M. Butler
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