Chosen

 Chosen

July 26, 2025

Ephesians 1:3-5

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

1 Peter 2:9-10

9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaimthe excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.

What does it mean to be chosen? To be a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation? In the gospel of John, Jesus told is disciples that he had chosen them.

John 15:16

16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whateveryou ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

Without getting into the endless debate between free will and predestination, what does it mean that He chose us? In our family it has a special meaning. Our children are both adopted. They are chosen. When we went through the adoption ceremony at the courthouse for one of them, the judge explained that adopted children are more your own than natural children. Since you chose them and adopted them, legally they are more part of your family that natural children. You can disown a natural son or daughter if they disappoint you, but an adopted child cannot be so easily dismissed. Since they chosen, they are legally forever a part of your family. 

Thus it is in God’s family. It says in Ephesians that He predestined us to adoption as sons. So he chose us, and made us part of the family of God even before we were born. There is a mystery there that we can’t really understand with our natural mind. But however it works in time and space, we have been grafted in to the Kingdom of God. Sons of Abraham, not by birth but by adoption. Legally heirs to the kingdom even more than the natural sons of Abraham. As Peter says, we have received mercy.  I Don’t understand it, but I know that it is true that we are chosen, adopted and loved by the Father, and made a part of His eternal kingdom. All we can do is to be thankful and act like a royal priesthood and a holy nation. He is our Father, and we are His children, and we bless HIs holy name for the privilege to be called sons.