I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.Deuteronomy 30:19 “I have a question about being chosen that I really want to understand more clearly if you could possibly help, please.” An email I received from a viewer of one of my talky video shows. “If it is God’s will that everyone be saved, then how does that correlate with only the chosen being saved? Wouldn’t God have chosen and predestined everyone if he wanted all to be saved?” It was one of those wonderful short emails posing a very deep theological question. I did my best to reply.
“God is eternal and omniscient,” I wrote. “He is not confined by time and he knows all things, past, present and future. Therefore, when I read that those God foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, I read it from the point of view that God already knows who will accept the message of Christ and who will not. However, we do not enjoy the same privilege. Therefore, in the here and now, you and I have an obligation to respond to the message of the cross.
“We are saved by grace through faith. Grace is God’s doing. God’s grace saved us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Faith is our part in salvation but even faith demonstrates we have no part in our salvation. Faith comes from God’s word and faith is confidence in another. However, faith is a choice, that is, faith is choosing to have confidence in the work or effort of another person to do what you cannot do. So, even though God foreknows your salvation, you still need to choose to have faith in Christ and put your confidence in his death and resurrection, confessing him to be Lord of your life,” I added.
“Although it is God’s desire that all the world should be saved, he gave us the privilege of choice. Indeed, God has foreknowledge of every soul who will accept Christ but, by his design, he allowed us to choose to follow or reject his goodness. Sadly, in Eden, man chose to reject the will of God and so all have sinned. Therefore, it’s God’s desire that we choose to turn from sin and choose to be reconciled to his goodness, through Christ.
“The core reason for God allowing us the privilege to choose him is love. How could we ever know God’s love unless we choose to receive it? Like faith, love is a choice. God is love and so we need to choose to accept his grace by faith because he loved us so much in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,” I ended my email reply and hit send, hoping my viewer would understand the gist of what I was saying.
Indeed, God loved you so much that he gave his only begotten Son, that if you choose to believe in him, you should not perish but have everlasting life. He knows the plans he has for you. Therefore, choose life today that you may live.