“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).
Jesus chose his first twelve disciples when they didn’t expect it, while they were working at their own jobs managing their own businesses. They were twelve men; a number of them were fishermen, and another was a tax collector. Despite having different professions, all of them had one thing in common: They were Jesus Christ’s disciples (students) and missionaries—given authority by Jesus to go out and accomplish a sacred mission—a mission to help Him teach the Gospel, serve other people, and testify of Jesus in order to make more disciples and more disciples and therefore build the “church” with a kingdom of God culture, prepared for meeting Christ upon His return, His second coming to earth.
When Jesus spoke to the first four of His chosen, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” they immediately left their nets and followed Him (Matthew 4:19-20). The others did likewise at His humble request, “Follow Me.” How did Jesus know who to call that would immediately stop all their money-making employment and obey His calling without questioning?
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29a). Of course, God knows who each of us is before we are even born. Is it not He who forms us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-14) and knows our every thought and word before we ever speak (Psalm 139:1-4)? He is our creator, our Father, and the biological seed of our human fathers He transforms into His holy seed the moment we immediately “leave our nets (our occupation of sin)” and follow Him.
God knows everyone who would ever be born. But His foreknowledge (knowing before it happens) embraces only those whom He foreordained or predestined (chosen). It is not enough to say that God foreknew (knew you before He called you) those whom He realized would one day repent and believe. Actually it is His foreknowledge that insures eventual repentance and belief. That ungodly sinners should one day be transformed in the image of Christ by a miracle of grace (undeserved mercy: love plus forgiveness) is one of the most amazing truths of divine revelation—the mind of God is so much higher than the mind of men. He knows the end from the beginning.
But take a moment and meditate on this: I, a sinner, in thought, word, and action would never draw near on my own to follow Jesus. Yet, when His gospel is spoken or revealed, and I hear His efficacious calling to follow Him, I say, “Yes, Lord.” In that split moment of time, my soul cries out, “Yes, Lord.” My body says, “No, no, no!” Just then the Spirit of God, His seed, births a new me, and it is the new me that gets up and climbs, crawls, walks, or runs out of sin’s darkness to draw nearer to Jesus’ holy, loving light carrying my body with me. Conversion, this change, is a miracle of special grace indeed. This special grace redeems (pays for your sins), justifies (renders you not guilty anymore), sanctifies (washes your soul clean), and glorifies (crafts you into the image of Jesus Christ).
The Chosen then are the redeemed, the justified, the sanctified, and the glorified servants of the living God in our faith-walk with Jesus Christ. This faith-walk (also known as “the race”- 2Timothy 4:7) requires determination, humility, and a new mindset, or way of thinking, that denies self and lives for the mission of God which is to share the gospel message (purpose of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ) and to testify about how you became a follower of Jesus (Revelation 12:11) so that others will also follow Jesus. This is the sacred and divine plan of God’s Kingdom-building.
The Chosen, in their quest to obey the One who gave them the authority of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), will encounter the enemy of the Great Commission, the enemy of Christ and the enemy of Jesus Christ’s followers, namely Beelzebub, Satan, that old devil, pure evil. Christianity is not a mere religion, it is a lifestyle that must be lived under peculiar behaviours, the foremost one, living in pure holiness.
Repentance is the key to unlocking the redemption, justification, and sanctification needed to live a glorious life of holiness. Holiness combined with God’s love is the power given to the chosen to defeat all powers of evil. But this combination of love and holiness must be actively applied in every situation or Satan most definitely will enter any loopholes he finds to stop the commission of the chosen.
The Chosen must be fully grounded in and fully filled with God’s Holy Love (1 Corinthians 13 and Ephesians 3:14-21) and guarded in God’s Holy Word (Hebrews 4:12) doing the work of an apostle—building God’s kingdom. Today, we put so much emphasis on the titles: “apostle”, “evangelist”, “prophet”, etc. The Bible called the first twelve chosen men, disciples and classified their mission as apostolos (Greek) taken from apostellein, sent out as a commission with authority and responsibility to the sender. So an apostle is properly one sent on a definite mission, in which he or she acts with full authority on behalf of the sender and is accountable to him. The Chosen are sent by the Sender, Jesus Christ, on the Great Commission (the assignment of spreading the gospel or good news about the purpose of Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, and ascension, noting He is still living) and we are to make account of all the souls we have won who have decided to follow Jesus.
In this Commission, the Chosen shall be hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) that we might shine the light of Jesus Christ from our soul transformed into His image that others may be drawn to that light and therefore be redeemed, justified, sanctified and glorified just as we are. This means the worldly, the sinner, will hate the Chosen and do everything possible to crush our character, divide our unity, cause confusion in our intentions, scandalize and slander our names and our mission, even kill or strike down our bodies to stop us from carrying out our commission; but even in death, our souls are not destroyed.
The Chosen are willing to lay down our mortal lives for the cause of Christ. We have already sacrificed everything of value to follow Jesus: And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake (Matthew 19:29). This is what being chosen requires: the Choice to follow Jesus, the Cross to carry, the Commission to account for, and above all else, the Cost of a hundred-fold (answered prayers) on earth and eternal life. It is this Cost, this Gift of God, that gives us the joy to never quit on this faith-walk—this race into eternal life—as we bear fruit from our choice, our cross, and our commission (James 1:2-4).
Stay rooted in God's Word and in His everlasting love.
© 2024 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved. Published by The Light In Me Enterprise. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The artwork depicted in the blog article is carefully selected to draw out the points made for healing of the soul, and by no means promote any ideologies from the various artists unless they are found in the center of God's perfect will.
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