Deuteronomy 10:12-17 12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?14 To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.
God chose the Israelites to be His special people. Now, if I was going to choose someone to be in a special relationship with me, I would choose carefully. I would be picky. I would look for people of the highest character. I would look for people who would add value to my life. I would seek out people who would be easy to be with, who would go along with my vision for life, who could join me in a purposeful and fruitful partnership. I would want to be with someone who had a good personality, someone who was fun to be around. None of that describes the Israelite nation, and yet we read in Deuteronomy 10 that God CHOSE them!
Let me describe them to you using descriptions from Scripture. Here is the gist of Deuteronomy 9:12-13
The Israelites were corrupt.
The Israelites were disobedient to God’s commands.
The Israelites made an idol to worship instead of worshipping the God who brought them out of Egypt.
They were stiff-necked. That means they were stubborn, obstinate, pigheaded, bull-headed, mulish, opinionated, unyielding, and strong-willed. They sound like a party waiting to happen, right? Not. These were the people God chose. God had bound Himself by oath to ungrateful, self-serving, short-sighted, disobedient, hard-to-deal-with, wishy-washy people.
Back up this train to chapter 7 of Deuteronomy where we read in verse 6 and following:
6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
What? God chose Israel because He loved Israel. Does that blow your mind? Is that a love that you can find anywhere on earth? God loved them because He loved them and had made a promise to always be their God.
The closest illustration we have on earth for this kind of love and commitment is pictured in the marriage covenant between a husband and wife. When a man and a woman leave their father and mother and become united physically and become one in spirit and in purpose, they continue to do so day after day because they make vows, they make promises to remain true to those commitments. Their words reflect a choice that they make, a choice intended to span a lifetime.
Thom and I will be married 25 years this November! When I married him, I expected him to live a chosen life. I expected him to walk away from previous patterns and to pursue an entirely new way of life with me. I expected him to stop dating other girls and to live chosen by me. I chose him to be my forever love. I chose him to be my life partner. I chose him to be my best friend. I chose him to be my prayer covering. I chose him to be a counselor for me. I knew he had chosen me to be all those things as well. Him choosing me changed me and changed the way I lived.
I was no longer pursuing my goals and dreams, but together, we were creating a whole new life. My identity became tied to his identity. I had a desire to avoid doing things that would embarrass him or bring reproach to his name, the name I took when we married. Thom expected me to live a married life, not a single life. There is a difference! I expected him to live a married life, not a single life. I have worked to serve him. I have done my best not to offend or annoy him. We can get into the weeds on how well I’ve done that, but the point is, there is an extreme shift in your life when you recognize the implications of having been chosen.
God had chosen the Israelites, but they didn’t get the implications of that, and they didn’t live chosen. What does it mean to live chosen?
- Living Chosen means living free from sin. I fear many Christians are counting on the grace of God to cover them taking great liberties to indulge in sin because they think forgiveness is easily obtained. God does liberally offer forgiveness, but it is offered to those who pray with a repentant heart. God doesn’t respond in forgiveness to empty words. When someone says, “Please forgive me,” all the while intending to continue in that sin, those words won’t be met with forgiveness.
Acts 3:19 says, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.”
Repentance means desiring to change. Jesus didn’t take our guilty verdict just so you could make it to Heaven. He took our sin so that we could be free from both the penalty of sin and the presence of sin in this life.
If you are a professing believer who loves to sin, that’s a problem. It means God doesn’t truly have your heart. Deuteronomy 10:16 that we read says, “Circumcise your hearts.” God wants to captivate our hearts with His amazing love. He has always been after the hearts of His chosen people. He is pursuing our hearts right now. We would all much rather hear about the generous grace of God than our need to respond to it with a desire to stop doing the things which put Jesus on the cross. Grace isn’t a license to sin. It is the motivation, and subsequent power to stop sinning.
- Living Chosen means a fruitful life. John 15:16-“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit-fruit that will last-and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”
God tells us that we have been chosen and appointed to bear Kingdom Fruit. You know what fruit that will last is? Helping people get right with God. Sowing seeds for eternity. Serving in ways that will go beyond your lifetime. Investing in others for Jesus’ sake. Building up the Kingdom. That is how you live chosen.
And we read that there is a direct correlation between living for God and having access to His resources and power. Are your prayers being answered? This passage tells me they will be if you are living the Chosen Life.
Jesus is the best thing that has ever happened to me, even above my relationship with Thom. Jesus is the love of my life. He is my daily priority and preoccupation. With God being my helper, I have looked to Him to satisfy me instead of the sinful things of this world. He has my heart. Don’t get me wrong. I still sin, but no part of my heart wants to. I am humbled to have been chosen to be His child, to be His Bride. That’s what we are, you know, the Bride of Christ. I want to spend my life living like I am glad to have received this incredible status, this awesome privilege, this sacred responsibility. What will you do with your chosen status today?