Chosen and hand picked by God

"The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be is people, his treasured possession." (Deuteronomy 7:6)

One of my greatest fears in school was being overlooked. When gym class played a team sport and the captains would choose their stars, those people who would carry the team to victory, I was pretty certain I would not be one of them. Many of us remember, and still today, feel the humiliation and pain of not being good enough.

Unfortunately, we often carry our inferior mindsets into our adult world. Most of us will grow out of this feeling of never being good enough; but some don't. Praise God I am a new creation. I know my short-comings, but more important, I know my strengths and I know who created me and made me who I am today. But, it wasn't always this way. I had to be renewed and transformed into a confident follower of Jesus.

Just to know I was chosen by God, to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ, is humbling beyond words. I may not have made the volleyball team, but I have been chosen. There are several clichés I could use here, but you get the idea. Once God got my attention through Renewal (Christ Renews His Parish) about 20 years ago, everything changed for me.

Now, it is my duty to see that I tell others about being chosen. It is time I share with all those who think the rejection of man has any weight in the Kingdom of God, that being chosen by God is all that matters. The Bible is full of stories of this, let's start pointing it out regularly, especially to those who desperately need to hear.
 
Deuteronomy 7:6-8

Cookie Cutter Christianity? No Way!

Romans 12:1-2 (J. B. Phillips translation)

1-2 With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

Have you ever made Christmas cookies?  First you have to find the cookie cutters, right - the stars, the trees, the bells....now where did I put those?  It's been a year since I've used them.....

So you sift the flour, cream the butter, add the eggs -put it all in the frig to chill, and then, when it's time, you roll out the dough and go to work with the cookie cutters.  Soon your kitchen is filled with a delicious aroma, and red and green stars and Santas and maybe even some glittery trees if a child or two is helping.  The cookie cutters help keep everything uniform - the bells all look like bells, the stars like stars, etc.

OK, enough about Christmas cookies (I wish I had one to share with you right now, but it is August, after all.)  Take a look at the bolded sentence from Romans 12, and think about how Molds are like cookie cutters.  Molds have their place, just like cookie cutters do, but Paul, the author of Romans, is urging us to stop and take a look around.  The world says, come over here, it's easy, you can do whatever you like - come join our cookie cutter ways of doing whatever feels right.

No!  Don't let the world do that to you, Christian!  God has a far better plan for you than to become a cookie cutter sinner!  Instead of being molded by the world, take the better path:  let God re-mold your mind from within!

We're going to be looking at this passage next week, so stay tuned for more on how we flee the cookie cutter life and turn to a life that God