Chosen Because Of Your Knowledge

Questions:  

     Did God choose you because you were smart?  

     Did He choose you because you were famous or because you had a      

          college education?

     Did God choose you because you had a brilliant mind, or because you  

          were popular or a movie star or a rock star?  

     Did the Lord choose you because you went to Bible college?  

How does the Lord choose those that He calls?

     Does He get the phone book out and randomly choose from this page

          or that page or in alphabetical order?  

     Does He confer with His angels and ask them who He should choose?

How does He choose the people that will follow Him?

     Was it because you were raised in a Christian home with Christian

          parents?

     Possibly He chose you because you were a good person and you did a

          lot of good things.

     How about this scenario, could He have chosen you because you were

          rich and could support His ministries?

     Could it be because you are beautiful, handsome, intellectual, rich and

          have it all together?

No, none of these things have any bearing on His choice.  This is the way most people would choose someone from all the trappings or the outward appearance.  But God’s ways and thoughts are so much different than ours. This is what the bible says about this subject in Isaiah 55:8–9, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.  “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” taken from the New Living Translation Bible.

Before we were chosen, or called, we were all sinners, so all the things we accomplished or the things we had done or things we possess  or outward appearance have no bearing on why the Lord chose us.  Some of these things may be very important to the world and how you will get along or how far you will go and what you will achieve in this worldly economy but they don’t sway God’s choice or call on your life.  It is not the ones that think they can impress God that sway His opinion, but He chooses the ones who let Him impress them.  “The ones with the humble and contrite heart He well not despise,” praise the Lord.  The thing that God is the most interested in, is the person’s heart.  The Word says that “The Lord resists the proud and draws to the humble, so humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.”  

I want to encourage all of those who think God can’t, or won’t, use them because of their outward appearance or their education or their gifts and abilities.  When the Lord called me I lacked most of the things that I talked about earlier in this lesson.  I was far from the idol list and I wasn’t famous.  Education was 7^th grade with a High School Equivalence diploma, after the Lord’s calling on my life.  I certainly wasn’t rich and I wasn’t raised in a Christian home.  I don’t think I was the ugliest person but I never would have won a contest for great looks.  My personality was terrible, carrying a grudge on my shoulder, so to speak.  My heart was hard and I didn’t trust most people, I considered myself a total freak.  I was a drunk, a pill popper and a very miserable person, but that didn’t keep God from calling me.

The Lord is sort of like a potter with his clay.  The potter shapes and molds the clay into the image that he wants it to become.  Sometimes when he inspects the piece he is making he sees the impurities in it and he knows that he can’t use it no matter how beautiful it looks, so he throws it out in his field.  He knows no matter what he does he can never get the impurities out of that piece of clay, it is completely ruined.  

That is the way people are treated in the world.  If they don’t have the list of things that I mentioned above then it is like they throw you out as damaged goods that they cannot tolerate.  Praise the Lord, the master Potter, He comes along and searches the potter’s field, so to speak, and he picks up the broken pieces and puts them back together again.  When He sees the humble and contrite heart and hears our confession of faith He takes the impurities, our sins, and washes them with the blood of Jesus His Son and we are made whole once again.  Then He equips us for his call on our lives. Remember God doesn’t call the equipped but He equips the called.

Now let me share with you what the Bible says about who the Lord calls, it is found in 1^st Corinthians 1: 26 – 29 “Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.  Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.  God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.  As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.”

So if you fall into this category, don’t be discouraged, just start praising God, for you are a special candidate for the Lord to use. I hope this will be a great encouragement to all who read it. God bless you and have a great day.   

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