Chosen Series

God loves me, and His spirit inside me is always bearing witness that I am HIS son, and He is calling me away to be with him.

I’ve often wondered how Paul and Silas can be beaten so badly that most of the skin was removed from their backs, and then chained to a wall in a dirt dungeon with bugs and rats and filth, probably freezing half to death and in horrific pain.

Yet they praised God to the point that God HIMself joined in and took the bass role and shook the jail apart, freeing them.

How- The Holy Spirit.

Listen, I say this over and over again, but we need to hear it over and over again-

We are living in a time were we need to shut of the media- TV, internet, phones, radios, and just sit in silence and pray. Let the HOLY Spirit wash over you, give you perspective, refresh, heal and reinvigorate you so that you can face these days we are living in, and that are coming on this earth.

Christian soldier- you are in basic training right now. It behooves you to listen to the Holy Spirit’s training so when the war comes you will survive and thrive in God’s army.

Finally the Holy Spirit will help you with the 4th benefit of being chosen-

D. Understand the times

While we have to be careful when it comes to watching the news and immediately trying to attach prophetic scripture to every news story, the Holy Spirit will remind you that the bible has foretold many of the events we are seeing today.

To me, it brings me a sense of peace because it assures me that God has this whole thing in control, and nothing is happening that HE hasn’t prepared a way for us to get through- even if it means martyrdom.

That’s a frightening thought, but only if your focus is only on this life.

Listen, when you came to Christ, your eternal life began- focus on that, because in a billion years you will probably not even remember this life. Live focused on that life, and what you will see in this life will be unable to affect your sense of joy, or happiness.

I want to close with this thought-

III. What are our responsibilities of being chosen

We have alluded to some of this throughout the message, but I want to frame this thought this way-

In the military if you are in uniform and do something that brings discredit to your military service they can charge you with the crime of “conduct unbecoming”. It means that as long as you wear that uniform and identify yourself as a member of that military branch, you have certain behavioral expectations that you have to meet.

Even in civilian life, if I am in scrubs with my hospital name badge on and go out and do something that reflect negatively upon the hospital I work for, they can discipline or fire me based on that.

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of HIS glory.

As Christians, Paul holds up the standard of Jesus Christ for us to live for, and does it in a way that isn’t just a list of do’s and don’ts, but helping us see it’s because of who God has called us to be in this world and not just to meet some nebulous standard of spirituality that changes from denomination to denomination.