You Are Chosen
Do you feel alienated? God says, “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6, NKJV). Moses clarifies in verse 7, God did not set His love upon Israel because they were wonderful, but in their smallness, He chose them. By the act of choosing them, God exalted them to a position of great value. Their being chosen made them special.
Before creation of the world, God the Father chose for Christ, the Lamb to be slain, so you and I could become His! (Revelation 13:8). Love beyond our comprehension motivates the Father, as He provided a way to draw you to Himself (though you are unholy), through the blood of the Lamb. With new birth, the blood cleanses us from sin and God sees you as accepted in Christ Jesus. Even as Christ is in the Father and they are one, we are hidden with Christ in God to become one with Him. Love is about union – uniting two into one. Even as the Lord chose Israel to be His special people through whom the world would recognize that God is LORD, He chose you and me to belong to Him as His beloved children. Paul says, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6, NKJV).
The Lord chose to set His love upon you; He views you as His special treasure. You do not work to become the treasure – you are His treasure. As a pearl of great price, even if you think you are a piece of gravel, or act like a piece of gravel – you are still a pearl. Relationship with Christ involves intimacy. As we focus on Him, His love grows in us, and makes us one in heart and mind with Him; we begin to experience the wonder of being His special treasure. As we recognize His very special love for us, we are able to begin to rest in His presence. Only as we are able to rest, do we begin to truly become one with Him, able to abide in Him, and allow Him to abide in us.
From Old Testament days, the Lord called Israel “My people”; He yearned to draw them into an exclusive relationship of belonging to Him, so they would find their identity in Him. Now, He speaks of you and me as “My people”. He says: “I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved” (Hosea 2:23; Romans 9:25, NKJV). It is beautifully expressed in 1 Peter 2:9-10. “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy” (NKJV). Although you were far away, lost in darkness, He chose you! Purchased with the blood of Christ, born by the Spirit of God, you belong to God the Father. With new birth, He translates you from the kingdom of darkness, into the Kingdom of His dear Son (John 1:13, Colossians 1:13).
With our foundation in Christ, no matter what happened in our past, the redemptive factor of belonging to Him overrides deep wounding, and alienation. His blood was shed to break down the walls of alienation. Sadly, in our pursuit of happiness, of longing to belong, in our desire to escape alienation and separation, we blindly turn away from relationship with Him. As we do, our sense of alienation grows. Feeling alienated, we rejected the Holy One. Where there was no alienation between us, we turned back to rest in the kingdom of darkness. As we chose to walk by feelings, we set into action the very alienation we sought to escape. Deceived, feelings of alienation predicate our reality. As we tried to escape the pain of alienation, we turned from the kingdom of light, and moved back to our hiding place within the kingdom of darkness, which further amplified our alienation.
Pain should drive us to the Lord. Instead, we try to escape pain through self-protection. It does not work because the Self, or flesh, works against God, and His kingdom. Yet, the Lord beckons, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14, NKJV). The heart of the Father is to forgive. Linked with forgiveness, is identity. “My people!” When you belong, you gain a sense of identity. God wants to meet your need to belong, He also desires to give you a healthy identity in Him. You are loved. No matter what has happened to you, there is hope!
Because of redemption, God, Himself, overrides the powers of darkness, and establishes a hedge of protection around us. He becomes our boundary. Being loved, we are no longer aliens; we belong. We are His!
“Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on His name. ‘They shall be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘On the day that I make them My jewels [literally “special treasure”]. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’ (Malachi 3:16-17, NKJV).
