Living in the joy of God's truth

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. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Ephesians 1: 3 – 6

There are times when words are just not enough to explain the wonder of the things that God has done for us.  These amazing verses which Paul wrote to the Ephesians just cannot really do justice to the enormity of God’s incredible love for us. We need the wonderful revelation from God’s Holy Spirit to bring these words of God’s love to life.

Too often we get through life believing all sorts of things about God and ourselves that are just not true and these lies consistently rob us of the joy that God wants us to live in. Too often when things go wrong or God does not seem as close as he did on another occasion, our first thought can be that we have done something wrong and God is cross with us or something else that is just not true.  We then spend far too much time apologising, repenting and feeling sorry for ourselves but instead II Corinthians 10: 5 tells us to ‘take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ’. We must capture these lies and force them into obedience to Christ. God wants us to live in the joy of the truth and not in the doubt and insecurity of lies and ungodly beliefs.

The truth is that God loves us so much that before the creation of the world he chose us. Yes he chose you – stop and consider that truth for a minute. Why did he choose us? Well it certainly wasn’t because of the wonderful people we were or anything we had or could do but because he loves us. He knows all about us and yet he loves us. Even if we get things wrong he still isn’t cross with us as we may be with our children. He doesn’t deal with us that way. Instead he takes us gently by the hand and asks us to look in the mirror and see the sin. All we have to do is repent and ask God’s forgiveness and the wonderful relationship between us and God that he chose us for is restored. Do not believe the lies; he disciplines those he loves (Proverbs 3: 12) in order to renew and strengthen our close personal relationship with him.

My prayer is that God will increasingly reveal to each one of us just how much God loves us and that these words of life will become so real to us that the truth will shine like a beacon of hope completely eclipsing the lies of the enemy that he has sown in our hearts. May the truth cause the lies to wither and die and be a source of increasing encouragement and joy on the path of life.

Chosen people

 You are a chosen people …. I Peter 2:9

The whole Bible is full of God choosing people. The doctrine of this is called election but the bottom line is that God chose individuals to be in relationship with him, to know his love and to work out his salvation plan for mankind.

God chose Abraham to be the ‘father of many nations’ Genesis 12:5.  He also chose his sons and grandsons.  Isaac was the son of the promise and it was scheming Jacob who also inherited the promise and whose name was changed to Israel which became the name of the nation. 

God chose Joseph of all the 12 brothers to be the saviour of Jacob’s family.  God chose Moses, the murderer, in spite of his great reluctance to lead the Israelites out of slavery.  God chose Aaron, even after he led the nation into idolatry, to become chief priest of the newly freed nation. God chose Gideon to free the Israelites from the oppression of Midian.  God chose David from his 8 brothers to be king and Solomon, not his first born son to be king after him.

The list goes on.  God chose Cyrus by name, before he was even born, to be the instrument of bringing the Jews back from exile and rebuilding the temple.  God chose Mary to be the mother of his beloved son.  Jesus chose the 12 to be his disciples and God chose Paul, the persecutor of his people, to be his instrument to take the Gospel to the Jews and Gentiles. 

And God has chosen you and me.  We know that we are a chosen people because the Bible assures us of that over and over again.  If in any doubt do read Ephesians 1: 3 – 14.  He takes ordinary people and does extraordinary things through them to bring about his plans and purposes.  As we have seen before, it is grace and grace alone that called us.  Immediately following the verses on being saved by grace it says, ‘For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do’ (Ephesians 2:10).  We have been chosen for a purpose.  We need never doubt our worth or the value in which God holds us.  The devil wants to persuade you that you are useless, worthless and a huge disappointment to God.  It is lies.  You are loved, appreciated, approved, valued, worthy and a source of great joy to God. 

You have been chosen by God.