“Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble.”
and election
“Election” is selection. Election denotes a picking out. It is the sum total of God’s plan for your life from eternity past to eternity future. God plans for our lives from eternity to eternity. He meets every contingency we might face.
Mt 22:14, “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Ro 8:33, “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”
1 Th 1:4, “Knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God.”
1 Pe 1:2, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”
We must make our election real in our lives. If we are to gain stability in our spiritual lives, we cannot do it by the gimmick system. We cannot move into sublimation if we are going to recover from spiritual failure. We make real our spiritual life by appropriating to our experience our summons and selection. God’s Word makes this real for us.
2 Ti 2:10, “Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”
Ti 1:1, “Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness.”
Re 17:14, “These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”
PRINCIPLE:
We need to make real our election to others and ourselves.
APPLICATION:
We make our call and election sure. When we do this, we will know that we are Christians, and others will know we are Christians. We obtain this assurance upon the naked, unsupported Word of God.
We cannot convey this to other people by simply quoting verses from the Bible. We have to live so that everyone who comes into our purview knows we have a real relationship with God. We live in a day in which talk is cheap. People view Christians as so much talk. They view talk as cheap. That is why our life must reinforce our lips; otherwise, people will discount what we say. They will listen, but they will not hear. They pay no attention to our words (Ezek 33:22). We do not break through their bias toward Christianity this way. We do not register our beliefs with them.
