Chosen by God

God chooses His children for Himself. Our relationship with our Lord is all about Him. It is all about His desires, His pleasures, His vision, His goals, and His will. When we came to God we came empty handed, clinging only to the cross of Christ. So in our surrender to our Savior, we emptied ourselves and received Jesus. We went from self-sufficient to God-dependent. We went from flesh patterns to spiritual habits.

We went from ungodly to godly. We went from an impersonal relationship with a distant God to an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father, up close and personal. God chose us for Himself. Now in our engagement with eternity, we want what God wants. Our passions have been changed from the temporal to the eternal. We get excited over what excites God.

Furthermore, He wants us to know and not forget these basic tenets of Christianity. He knows we need to know. He knows that we need to know because we forget and revert back to beliefs that rival God’s ownership of our lives. Because He owns us, He owns everything about us. You may be struggling with traveling overseas for the sake of His cause. But Jesus’s commands are clear that we are to go into all the world and make disciples.

You may be too busy to build a relationship with your neighbors. But our sensitive Savior implores us to love them. Our words may say one thing, but our behavior brands us. What can we do today to set ourselves apart as His? Our distinctive may be to reflect a patient attitude, a caring comment, or sinless anger toward hypocrisy. We are at His disposal to carry out His desires. This is His expectation.

Moreover, God offers a clear channel of communication for His children. He hears when we call to Him. Prayer is not passive for our heavenly Father. He is interested in our intense circumstances and our heartfelt fears. Because we are His, He listens to and answers our prayers. It is not always the answer we expect it to be. He defines His will for us as much with his answers of “no” as He does with His answers of “yes.”

Our prayers are a response to the love, respect, dependency, and trust we have in our heavenly Father. Because we are His, we come to Him often, as does a child in a healthy relationship with his or her parent. We have no need to fear, for our heavenly Father is near. He is near to listen and to love. He is near to forgive and heal. He is a prayer away.

The more we constantly converse with Christ, we will surely speak all the more boldly to men. Prayer is a purging and a preparation. It is God’s platform to launch us into fields that are ripe for harvest. It is a preparation for engagement in the lives of people. Prayer fills us with love so we can be emptied of love. God chooses us, and what He chooses He makes holy. We are godly because we are God’s. It is holiness that makes us fit to live with holy God forever. Without holiness we cannot see our Savior (Hebrews 12:14). Boldness follows seeing Jesus. Because He was poured out, we are sold out.

Taken from Reading #3 in the 90-day devotional book, “Seeking God in the Psalms”… http://bit.ly/bQHNIE

Post/Tweet this today: Our words may say one thing, but our behavior is what brands us. #behavior