Why Did God Choose You?  Are You Special?  What Does the Lord Requires of You?
by Charmaine West Wright

 
We see the answer to this in John 15:16.  As it stands, the Father chose us because we answered the call mentioned in Matthew 22:14. In our Father's eyes we ARE special as the Holy Spirit engrafts us into His Family and we acknowledge Him as "Abba, Father", our source and sustenance. Jesus also calls us "friends". We know a friend is someone we can share our very hearts with and know and trust they have our best interest at heart. The Father longs for us to share everything with Him. He allows certain hard things to come to see how we handle them. In this, He knows or more so we know what we need to ask help for. (John 15:2; James 1:2-4; & I Peter 4:12-16). The purging process is hard but needful to take away all that stops us from hearing and doing what the Father wants. James tells us "to count it all joy when we fall into different temptations (trials, tests). Now, no one would naturally do that but God doesn't work in the natural, does He?  Again, in I Peter He says "not to think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you…  You see He has it all planned because HE wants to get the glory from the decisions, actions and reactions we make in life. Think about this in the natural, a maker of a car knows what was put into a particular model.  One knows what it is supposed to do but it still goes through rigorous road tests and put to the limit to make sure it can do all that's expected of it.
 
Remember, Our Father God, IS LOVE (I John 4:8b). He always has us on His mind and Isaiah 49:16 tells us He has graven us on the palms of His hands. Imagine all the people there are and when we come to Him and say we're His, we're in His Mighty hands and nothing can take us out of them; we serve an awesome God! Unfortunately, many times we choose to jump out ourselves. The Father loves us and will set us straight if we are going down the wrong path. So many things come up and may be painful to endure. We have to dig deep inside and see what's there. Sometimes empty or lacking, we call on the Father and His grace is there to help us. "Grace" is a gift brought to us by Jesus Christ. It's the Lord's favor freely extended to give Himself away to people because He's always leaning toward them.  Grace forgives the repented sinner bringing joy and thankfulness to him. When we call to the Father, we are asking for "mercy". Mercy is concerned with the misery brought upon the sinner as consequences of that sin; mercy is joined with a desire to relieve him. 
 
 As we receive the finished work of the cross so obediently done by Jesus, we should then take on His Nature and Character. (Galatians 2:20-21)  After all, God's full power and victory operates through a yielded vessel.  Only when we can say we are no longer our own but belong to Him, can we truly know we are on the right track to doing what the Lord requires of us. Now, we have to "receive" the finished work of the cross. "Receive" in the biblical sense means to associate ourselves with; to take, be conscious of and observe; to learn, which is to know and abide by.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:29 "take my yoke upon you and learn of me…" In essence He's saying to receive His yoke-work together with Him for He is able to help us through the most difficult tasks.  To learn of Him- "receive"- desire, seek, bring into experience what is instructed. We must know with a moral bearing and responsibility. (John 6:45) As we read the Word the Holy Spirit delivers to our spirit what the Father is saying. He is the one Jesus left here to work alongside us and even tell the Father things we don't know to say ourselves (Romans 8:26: the Spirit itself should read, 'Himself' - He is the 3rd Person of the Godhead)!  Working with Jesus, being conscious of his instructions and being responsible for the Word given is how we as yielded vessels allow God's full power to operate through us.
 
We see in I Peter 2:9-10 we are chosen and our Father calls us a peculiar people. We're moving with a purpose and bound together toward a cause. We are going forth to show the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light but we can't do it by ourselves. We're bound together with Jesus and the Precious Holy Spirit. John 15:4 states to abide in (stay with, live in) Him because apart from Him we can do nothing. We can't bear fruit of ourselves. In other words, if we try to influence someone by living according to our standards, it is futile. Only by we ourselves measuring up to the Father's righteousness can a person see the light in us that draws them and makes them hunger for the Father or source of that light, Jesus. He in turn says we are the "light of the world" (Matthew 5:14a) and we are to act like it. (I John 4:17b)
 
John 15 refers many times to fruit that should come from our lives. First of all, when we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us to cause our nature and character to change to that of Jesus, we need the fruit of the Spirit spoken of in Galatians 5:22-23.  There are nine fruit mentioned but all are referred to as one, there is no "s".  So, that means we have to demonstrate them all to be complete and functional for our Father to flow through. LOVE leads the list, it prompts us to think and speak well of others and expresses the spirit of all the others; it is fundamental for the others and leads to us observing them: with JOY, we are concerned with the prosperity of Christ's Kingdom; it's a delight of mind arising from the consideration of a present or assured possession of a future good. That's why even in the Old Testament, Nehemiah 8:10 declares "the joy of the Lord is my strength" and Jesus in John 15:11 tells us because of the Spoken Word His joy remains in us (paraphrased). It's encouraging wen our minds are set to seek the Lord and win souls for Him to know we are and will be rewarded for our obedience. Now PEACE is unity, concord which is acquired through a restored relationship with God. If we are still in our own mindset and doing things our way, there is no peace and we can't work with the Lord or anyone else. Peace brings about that assurance that everything is alright with you and the Father, what a good feeling an when we feel good we "just want" to do something to make a difference! Ah, LONGSUFFERING, a calm and unruffled temper bearing the evils of life from people or things; it's sweet submission to appointments of God and it saves one from discouragement in the face of evil and aids in the cultivation of Godliness and development of Christian character. This fruit is found in I Corinthians 13 as the first attribute of love, which is God. When developed there it doesn't matter what comes our way, we WILL handle it the right way. There will be no attitude, hurt feelings, backbiting, figuring out how to get back or get even because we know our Father is backing us up. He is in control of it all and we just have to follow the lead of the Precious Holy Spirit. Then there's GENTLENESS, which is going back from strictness and allowing for imperfections; it's giving value where normally I none. Displaying gentleness is surely something that will cause a person to trust us and really feel we are concerned about their wellbeing thus drawing them to the Father's love residing in us. My, my, my GOODNESS, a quality of character that makes us lovable and express holiness and excellence of God's character and is the sum of all His Character. Exodus 33:19-23 God tells Moses He will make His goodness pass before him. The Father will put him in a cleft of the rock and cover him with His hand while He passes by. Today, we know we stand on the rock who is Jesus. God's goodness was truly exemplified in Joseph's life as we read in Genesis 39-50. All that was thrown at him never caused him to have a dim view or blame God for all that was happening. Instead, he always portrayed Godly character and it caused God's favor to be with him the whole time. Believe me he went through some stuff; more than some of us ever will and he didn't have the person of the Holy Spirit as we do today because remember Jesus hadn't yet come to send him back. We can all reflect on Joseph's accounts and see where we can and should make adjustments in our lives. We now look at FAITH which is confidence and fidelity to God and lies at the basis of all knowledge. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. (Hebrews 11:6a) We must know and take to heart the truth of God's Word because He can't lie (Numbers 23:19) and He hastens, or is in a hurry to perform His Word (Jeremiah 1:12). He WANTS to see what He says come to pass! Ok, now we have MEEKNESS, which is lowliness of mind and we know Philippians 2:7-8 says Jesus, the Son of God, made Himself of no reputation, took upon himself the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men but He humbled Himself. This is a solid fact to sink in realizing nothing we do, not a thing, can we get the big head and say look what "I" did or think we're all that because without Jesus we ARE nothing! Last, but not least, there's TEMPERANCE, the controlling power of our will under the operation of the Spirit of God. God gave us all a free will so the way we act or react is our choice. No one can make us do anything, not even God. If it were so there would be no sin in the world today. We would all be perfect little beings, but we know that isn't so. It's if we give Him free reign and are totally submitted to Him we willingly and lovingly say "Yes" to what He wants.
 
So, allowing the Holy Spirit to incorporate all of Jesus ways and mindset in us, we can truly be His representation on the earth). You see, our new life isn't for our self but for others. . (II Corinthians 5:18-20. Our feelings shouldn't count when it comes to the things of our Father. We need to let Him take control of our souls which is where our emotions and intellect are. They are the culprits that keep us at bay when we don't understand or are in the mood for the Father's bidding. Psalm 103:1-5 even tells our souls "to bless the Lord" or in essence to honor Him. The fruit the He is looking for mentioned in John 15:8 is souls. In order for us to get those souls or our Father's fruit, we have to have the Son's fruit living in us. We are approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel (I Thessalonians 2:4) but reconciliation is possible only because Jesus went to the cross. We MUST daily act as representatives of heaven with our whole persona displaying all of our Father's love, so full of peace and joy to claim another soul for Him, carefully exemplifying longsuffering, never giving up; gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance or self control. You know our lives should worship God all day long {what we say and do and how we act and react}. We should never hold anything back from Him as stated in Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:18b-20.
 
Therefore, when we associate ourselves with all the Father is directing us to, hear all Jesus is saying through the Word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to bring it to life to bear fruit in our lives. (Galatians 5:22-23), in return, others can be fed as we bring forth fruit that remains and brings glory to our Father. (John 15:16a)
 
In His Name,
Charmaine West Wright 

posted 7/21/15