Monday, August 12, 2019

Pastor's Pondering, August 12, 2019

Let Us Choose God Since He First Chose Us

On Thursday, August 8, 2019, Mayor Mike Duggan announced that our daughter, Denise Fair, has been appointed to be the Chief Public Health Officer for the City of Detroit.  Our family and her friends and co-workers have poured out their support of the Mayor’s choice and wished her the best for her appointment.  As her parents, my wife and I are especially pleased how the Lord has blessed the Mayor to select her out of many qualified candidates. 

It is good to know that she has been selected, but it is greater to know that He has chosen all of those who love the Lord (Ephesians 1:4).  We have been delivered from the power of darkness and are now in the kingdom of Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:13).  One day we will stand before the throne of God and will hear, “Well done, the good and faithful servant.”  

King David wrote that he just wanted to be with God (Psalm 27:4) and would rather be simply a doorkeeper in God’s house than be with those who did not love Him (Psalm 84:10).  We are now left with a life changing choice.  The Bible tells us to choose whom we will serve.  The Children of Israel’s leader, Joshua, concluded that he and his house would serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).  Since God has chosen us before the world was begun, let us choose to love, serve, and obey Him all of our days.

Ephesians 1:4
New International Version (NIV)
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight…

Colossians 1:13
New International Version (NIV)
13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

Psalm 27:4
New International Version (NIV)
One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

Psalm 84:10 
New International Version (NIV)
10 Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

Joshua 24:15
International Version (NIV)
15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

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