Election

Whenever we traveled abroad, we brought our two sons separate bars of chocolates.  But there is another method of giving them goodies.  We could have got a bag of chocolates, handed it to one, and asked him to share it equally with the other.  This method of sharing does not mean one is chosen while the other is rejected!  As I understand God's choice, He did not reject the rest of the world when He chose Abraham in particular and the Jewish nation in general.  His choice of one does not mean His rejection of others.  When God chose the Jews, God expected the Jews to proclaim God's love to the whole world.  That is something we have to understand.  God told Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed"(Gen 12:3).  God made Abraham a channel of blessing to the whole world when He said, "in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed."  Five generations back, in our family, God chose Rev S. Y. Abraham to be His follower, which has been the reason for our inherited blessings!

Abraham's life shows us that God has a plan and a call on a person's life even before they are aware of it.  Jeremiah said that God knew him, consecrated him, and appointed him before he was formed in the womb (Jer. 1:5).  Paul said that God set him apart even from his mother's womb (Gal. 1:15).  But God's sovereign choice never depends on human merit. God did not look down from heaven and say, 'Oh, here is a good man; I will choose him.' Instead, God chose and called sinners to Himself.  Abraham was a sinner.  God chose him simply because of grace, apart from anything God foresaw in Abraham.  Salvation, from start to finish, is all from God, not at all from man.  God places each one in a family with a plan.  Sometimes, God will take that person and use him to turn the family and even whole nations toward God for generations afterward. 

My friend, just like those who have gone before us, we too have been chosen by God to be a channel of God's blessing, a channel of God's love, and the message of salvation first to our families and then to the society where God has placed us.  The question we have to answer today is, are we living up to God's expectations?

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