1. Your faith is not the basis of God’s choosing you, but the result of it.
Your faith is a wonder — more marvelous than any of the seven wonders of the world. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). And this choosing goes deeper than the selection of the Twelve. We know this because Judas was among them, yet he was not truly chosen. Jesus clarified, “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’” (John 13:18).
If you have come to Jesus, the true wonder is that you already belonged to the Father — and the Father gave you to the Son. You were not chosen because you came; you came because you were chosen. Jesus said it plainly: “All that the Father gives me will come to me… Yours they were, and you gave them to me” (John 6:37; 17:6).
Your identity as a child of God is rooted in eternity — in the infinite mind and heart of God. If you believe in Jesus, it is because you were first appointed to eternal life. You weren’t appointed because you believed; you believed because you were appointed. When the Gentiles heard that the gospel included them, “they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).
So revel in this truth: you are a Christian because God chose you to be one. Your roots stretch beyond time, anchored in the eternal love and purpose of God. Your faith — and every fruit it bears — is not your achievement, but His gift.
2. Therefore, the basis of God choosing you is not in you, but in grace.
Take Israel, God’s people in the Old Testament. Why did He set His favor on them above all other nations? What was the foundation for calling them “my chosen” (Isaiah 45:4)?
Moses gives us the answer: “The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.” (Deuteronomy 7:6–8)
This is astonishing: “The Lord set his love on you and chose you… because the Lord loves you.” He loves because He loves. That’s the deepest and most profound reason behind God’s choosing — not strength, not numbers, not merit, but love rooted in His own sovereign will.
Paul echoes this mystery when he reflects on Jacob and Esau. Why was Jacob, the father of Israel, chosen over his twin brother? Paul writes: “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad — in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls — their mother was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’” (Romans 9:11–12)
And this principle still holds today. Paul affirms, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.” (Romans 11:5)
So it is with every true believer. Behind our faith, behind our coming to Jesus, is grace — and grace alone. There is no deeper reason for our being chosen than the sovereign, wise, and incomprehensible love of God.
Oh, the magnitude of this truth — that our salvation rests not on our worth, but on His will. Let your soul rest in the wonder of being chosen by grace.
3. Since our faith and obedience is owing to God’s choice of us, we can know we are chosen.
Consider God’s people in the Old Testament — the nation of Israel. Why did God set His favor on them above all the peoples of the earth? What was the foundation for calling them “my chosen” (Isaiah 45:4)?
Moses gives us the answer: “The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.” (Deuteronomy 7:6–8)
This is breathtaking: “The Lord set his love on you and chose you… because the Lord loves you.” He loves because He loves. That is the deepest and most profound explanation for God’s choosing — not merit, not numbers, not strength — but love rooted in His own sovereign will.
Paul echoes this mystery when he reflects on Jacob and Esau. Why was Jacob, the father of Israel, chosen over his twin brother? Paul writes: “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad — in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls — their mother was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’” (Romans 9:11–12)
And this principle still holds. Paul affirms, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.” (Romans 11:5)
So it is with every true believer. Behind our faith, behind our coming to Jesus, is grace — and grace alone. There is no deeper reason for our being chosen than the sovereign, wise, and unfathomable love of God.
Oh, the magnitude of this truth — that our salvation rests not on our worth, but on His will. Let your soul rest in the wonder of being chosen by grace.
4. Being chosen by God means no charge against us can finally stick.
The multiplied wonders of God’s choosing a people include the unfathomable fact that God sent his Son into the world to cancel all the debts of his chosen ones — to nullify every damning accusation against them, and to give them a righteous standing in the court of heaven.
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. (Romans 8:31–34)
The reason no charge can stick to God’s chosen ones is that God “gave [his Son] up for us,” and it necessarily follows that God will “graciously give us all things.” The wonder is not only that there is “no condemnation,” but that this was all planned in eternity to be omnipotently successful. He did not do this great work like a fisherman throwing a net to see who might swim into it. We did not just happen to swim into God’s salvation. This was planned and performed with a special view to us, the chosen ones. This is a wonder to revel in.
5. Being chosen by God is designed to secure for us the sweetness of humility.
The more we reflect on what it means to be chosen by God, the more awe it inspires. Paul urges us to consider this — not casually, but joyfully and humbly. Why? Because pondering our calling leads us away from pride and toward humility.
He begins by asking us to think about our “calling” — the moment we were brought from death to life. This calling is how we experience, in time, the eternal choice God made. And then Paul emphasizes, not once but three times, that we were chosen:
Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:26–29)
Do you see the beauty in this? God, in His freedom, chooses whom He will — and in doing so, He overturns every worldly notion of status and worth. Just when we think we understand His criteria, He surprises us again. Paul makes the purpose clear: “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
God’s choosing is meant to silence our boasting. Your faith in Jesus is a miracle — more wondrous than any of the seven wonders of the world. Anyone who claims they were chosen because of something within themselves has missed the point entirely. The purpose of God’s choice is to dismantle self-reliance as the basis for His favor. We contributed nothing — absolutely nothing — to deserve being chosen.
So rejoice in this truth: you bear no burden to earn or justify your place in God’s family. There is no merit to measure up to. There is only grace.
6. Being a chosen race is the end of racism among Christians.
The chosen race are people who are “born again to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3). Their new identifying DNA is from the Holy Spirit. Race and ethnicity are not unimportant in our common cultural life. But they are not what unites us to God or to each other in Christ. We are a new creation, a new humanity. Peter even says, a new race! A “chosen race.” A race taken from all races.
God chose us freely — without respect to race — to be in this new race. Then he sent his Son to purchase us from all the ethnic groups of the world: “You were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). In this way, he nullified all racism. For he bound together every race and every ethnicity into one new family, with one glorious Father. And he did this in eternity when he chose to make a people from every race into one new race.
Revel in your freedom from racism. And if you can’t, then come learn who you are. Learn what it means to be a “chosen race.”
7. Being chosen by God means being destined for everlasting, all-satisfying praise of the infinitely beautiful God.
This is what Paul says in Ephesians 1:4–6. God “chose us” and “predestined us . . . to the praise of the glory of his grace.” And in case we missed it, he says in verse 12, “ . . . to the praise of his glory.” And again in verse 14, “ . . . to the praise of his glory.” We get the joy of admiration. He gets the glory of exaltation.
Revel in the wonder that you were chosen in eternity past for the endless joy of praise in eternity future.
8. Being chosen by God means that God will use all necessary means to bring you to this eternal glory.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come,
’Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
We do not travel from new birth to new earth without the trials of a traveler. And if God had not chosen for us to be helped by many fellow travelers, we would not make it. That’s why Paul says, “Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the chosen ones, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:10).
Paul himself was a God-chosen means of saving the chosen ones. So are you. You are one. And you need others. For God’s chosen ones, the means are necessary, and they are certain. For God has chosen them as surely as he has chosen you.
Revel in the wonder that you must fight your way to heaven, and God will see to it that you win.
9. Being chosen by God means that God shapes history on your behalf.
The flow of history will be altered. For the sake of the chosen ones. The world of unbelievers, who reject God and his Son, have no idea how the world is run. They do not know what true significance is. They will be stunned someday to learn that the Christians, whom they despised or ignored, were the linchpin of history.
10. Finally, being chosen by God means he will gather us when he comes, and give us justice.
“We were designed to find our fullest satisfaction not in front of a mirror, but in front of God.”
So it will be with all God’s chosen ones. “He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:31). Finally, it will come true: “Will not God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry to him day and night?” (Luke 18:7). Yes, he will. And everything hidden will come to light.
Revel in this promise. You may feel like a rejected stone for now. But when he comes, he will make you a pillar in the temple of God (Revelation 3:12). He will triumph over every enemy of your soul and you will reign with him — you, the chosen ones. “For he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful” (Revelation 17:14).