I'm Chosen!

As I mentioned last week, I started a new Bible study Duty or Delight with the book clubbers over at The Kiser Family's blog. Since I have been sick with strep throat (yuck!), I sat down last night to start and finish week 1 of the study: Knowing God Has Chosen Us.

The Lord really used this material to speak to me. I don't know why, but I was not expecting Him to show up so quickly and begin working on my heart.

Each week we will discuss the material on the blog, and today, there was a challenge ::

Answer this-- "What have you heard the most this past week in the study? Identify 1-3 things that really stood out to you. Elaborate on your thoughts? Is there anything you need to do in response yet?"

The message I heard loud and clear and continue to hear on the loudspeaker is that I'm chosen. I'M chosen. Me, little old me. If any of you are like me, you doubt yourself, beat yourself up over past, present and future mistakes, and you think you have to work hard to make sure you cross your t's and dot your i's to get God's approval. Maybe even to make sure He loves you.

But, this week, well, really last night for me, I realized that I don't have to go through all of that. He just chose to love me. He wants to pursue me. Tammie Head, the author points out that, "God is not looking for a cleaned-up version of us. He's just looking for us. No pretense. No game face. No Miss Perfect. Just plain, 'ole, ordinary you and me." I love that. There is such freedom in those sentences. He just wants me for me. Not some glorified Kristen I think exists somewhere out there...

More than once in my member book, I wrote the words, "what a sigh of relief".
Read this quote by A.W. Tozer ::

"Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which, briefly stated, means that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.
... We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.
It is by this prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming.
... All the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand."

How beautiful and refreshing is that truth?! I don't have to work hard to prove my love/desire to make God want me or love me - He already does.

And He loves you too - He chose you too. In fact, Ephesians 1:4 tells us that, "For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in his sight."

Think about that for a second. Before the foundation of the world, He chose us. He chose you. He chose me.