There is perhaps no greater beauty than the fact that God chose to save you. Out of the billions of people who have ever lived, He chose to save you. Let that sink in. How can we do anything except praise the Lord and fall on our face in thankfulness at this most astounding and irrational truth? So many will live their lives without Jesus and die with their sins unforgiven (John 8:24).
That could have been you or me. But for some reason, He spares us the agony and torment of an eternal Hell and gifts us eternity in the presence of our precious and loving Savior (Revelation 21:3-4). To our finite minds, in some ways, this doesn’t seem fair.
I neither care nor desire to argue about Calvinism or Arminianism. The whole argument that Christ-followers must choose sides between two fallible men is untenable to me. I choose to follow Jesus and His holy Word, and that Word says that somehow, some way, God chose us before the formation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-6). This is neither unfair nor unjust because the perfect God can be neither unfair nor unjust. Do you know what justice without mercy would look like? He would save none of us because all of us have sinned and fallen short of what He demands of us (Romans 3:23).
We cannot grasp the truth that Jesus is the Messiah with our own flesh and blood intellect (Matthew 16:16-17; 1 Corinthians 2:14). God, in His mercy, chooses to reveal this truth to some who are willing to believe it. I don’t know how He determines this, nor do I possess the ability to comprehend it if I knew. All I know is He chose to save me, and if you believe, He chose to save you (John 15:16). Once you grasp this truth, you will never be the same. We deserve Hell and all its horrors, but we get Jesus and all His rewards (Romans 6:23).
If we understood the gravity of such truth, we would spend our entire lives bowed down, faces to the ground, and praise bursting from our lips. Tears of thankfulness should be the staple of our diet. He chose to save you. Don’t keep reading until you’ve sat with the weight of that for a minute. The unknowable God chose to be known by the likes of you and me. Hallelujah! He showers unfathomable mercy and grace upon one as unworthy as myself. I can’t explain it. I can only be grateful beyond all words and any expression.
He chose to save you. Knowing this, what will you do with the rest of your life? What is the proper response to such a priceless gift? We can never repay Him for choosing us. We can never repay Him for dying for us (Romans 5:8). The only thing we can do is spend every waking moment living to honor and glorify Him. What else can we do?
Knowing all this, how can we choose to continue to live for ourselves? How can we ever choose to sin and break the heart of the God who loves us so much (Ephesians 4:30)? How can we dare reject the grace and mercy of our King by turning our backs and going our own way (Hebrews 10:26-27)? God forbid we disparage His kindness towards us. God forbid we ever do anything that offends the holiness of His character. He chose to save you. Live like you understand what that means.