TRANSFORMING LOVE (HE CHOSE YOU, PART 4)

CHAPTER 1
Part 4

YOU ARE Predestined and Chosen by God

To be His

“God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” (Ephesians 1:4)

This is your first miracle! You are the miracle! When God chooses you; you choose God, it makes you miraculously anew (2 Corinthians 5:17).

You will look in the mirror and “see” the same person and you may, for a while, still do the same things as you did before, but spiritually you are NOT the same.

Believing you are brand new in Christ RIGHT NOW by exercising your faith will determine how your relationship with God will grow and develop from this point on.

When you are first married, you may not feel like you are a part of your new family, but in time you will by spending time with them.

Don’t go by your feelings, believe God’s word whether you “feel” it or not. Feelings are NOT the criteria for responding by faith, truth is.

You are NOT the same. Even though you don’t see it yet – but by spending time with God - you and others will clearly see you are being transformed by God’s power (Romans 1:20).

You are “in” Christ and NOW share his divine nature. Your spirit is ALIVE and you are “one” with Christ and NOW share his holiness.

You can NOW live righteous and choose righteous living by exercising your new God-given faith. “…For [NOW] all the promises of God “in” Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

When you marry, you are NOW “in” a new family and the wedding is the evidence. You stood before God and witnesses and said “I do.”

Choosing God means you have, accepted, believed, received, or invited Jesus into your heart as the sacrificial payment for ALL your sins.

When God chooses you; you choose God; a divine exchange takes place when you say “I do (believe)”.

A woman exchanges her last name for her husband’s last name. A believer exchanges the old sinful nature for God’s divine nature. “…the old has passed away, behold all things are new…” (3 Corinthians 5:21).

In order for a man or woman to enjoy all the rights of godly, married life they must go from single status to couple status and thus have a wedding.

When the bride was presented to the groom, back in the day, she wore a white dress to symbolize her virginity and purity of heart.

The veil, in some traditions, was used to hide the bride’s, face in case she was somehow marred and her husband rejected or refused her at the altar.

After the ceremony ends, the bride and groom begin a new life together where the two “BECOME” one flesh.

In order to enjoy all the rights of a covenant relationship with the holy God, you must go from sinful status to holy status by believing and receiving Christ as Lord and Savior.

Being “in Christ is like being “in” the wedding dress and wearing the veil, which both symbolizes you are cleansed from sin and “….your life is [now] hidden with Christ in God….” (Colossians 3:3).

The holy God sees you wrapped “in” the righteousness of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). The relationship with God is restored and you are NOW “one” with God through Christ.

The difference between the human marriage and the supernatural marriage to God is the depth of God’s love.  “Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him” (Romans 5:8 MSG).

Also “…This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. (1 John 4:10 MSG).

God gave his ALL to enter into the relationship with you (…..God so loved … [YOU] that he gave his ONLY…” (John 3:16).  

He sets the example, through Christ, on how to enter into a real “oneness” relationship. You have to be willing to die totally to self. “….he [Jesus] …humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross….” (Philippians 2:8).

When you get married you can’t have one foot in the single life and the other foot in the marriage life. You must be ALL “in” the marriage or it will never work.

God urges you to “….give me your heart….. present your bodies…keep my commandments…..abide in my love……that your joy might be full…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…” (Proverbs 23:26, Romans 12:1, John 14:15, John 15:10-11 and 2 Peter 3:18).

The visual component of the supernatural marriage is baptism. Baptism, like a wedding, shows God and witnesses you are ALL “in.” 

Baptism signifies you are cleansed by the Spirit, are “in” Christ, committed to live a new life, made holy, dead to sin, and dead to the old life.

“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4).

Baptism is the outward wedding (ceremonial event) that mirrors the inward “oneness” between God and the believer.

When God chooses you; you choose God, Paul said, “……those who [choose God through Christ] were gladly baptized….” (Acts 2:41).

When the wedding is over or the baptism is over; you come out of the ceremonial event to “….walk in the newness of life….” (Romans 6:4).

Baptism doesn’t save you and the wedding doesn’t make you “one flesh”; it is simply an outward event that represents what has already taken place, inwardly, between the man and woman or God and the believer.  YOU ARE, RIGHT NOW, ALIVE IN CHRIST!!!!!

 EXCERPT FROM THE CHAPTER 

"HE CHOOSE YOU" FROM THE

BOOK TRANSFORMING LOVE

BY PENSACOLA H JEFFERSON
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