The Mutual Choice

Before the world was made, before sin came in, God chose you to be with Him through all eternity.

Jesus said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (John 15:16 NKJV).

The question that comes to our minds is why? Why would God choose us? What goodness or merit did God see in us that He would choose us as His children? I hope you’re not disappointed by this, but the answer is there was no goodness. There was no merit. It is not even because we are lovable. The fact is that He chose us despite us.

In Ephesians 1 we read, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (verses 4–5 NKJV).

Why did God choose us? It’s the same reason that He chose the nation Israel. Speaking through His servant Moses, God said to Israel, “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you” (Deuteronomy 7:7–8 NKJV). The Lord chose them because He loved them.

And that’s why He chose us: because He loved us and loves us. God chose us, but the Bible also tells us that we must choose Him.

As Dwight L. Moody put it, the whosoever wills are the elect, and the whosoever won’ts are the non-elect.” God wants all to believe.