Welcome once again to our Wonderful Day in the Lord broadcast. I trust you are inviting me into your home, car or office and taking just a few minutes to open the Word of God with me. We are looking at the great riches we have in Christ. As I think about some of those riches, we are still looking at the book of Ephesians as it is so full of this subject. I’d like to look at Ephesians 1:4, at one of the great riches that are ours in Christ.
Ephesians 1:4 says, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” This is a verse some people shy away from because they don’t quite comprehend what it is saying, and we understand that. These verses are very intense and heavy, but they are also very important. What we find here is that He chose us. I don’t know a lot of you that are watching or listening on a personal basis, but some of you may have come from backgrounds where you were unwanted. I know of children who have been unwanted by their parents and grew up in that type of environment. There are people that have been abused, neglected, or harmed in many ways. There are people who have gone to school or work and been rejected by most of their peers and have grown up lonely and unwanted. Then later in life, this haunts them as they begin to question if anyone loves them or wants them. They wonder if everyone rejects them, and they feel very concerned about that. Some act out in anger because they feel rejected and unloved. They turn against the world and people. These are people that do great harm and damage in our society sometimes. They are angry people, and they are angry because they feel unloved and neglected and no one has ever wanted them, and they are going to teach some people some lessons. These are the kinds of things that many people have grown up with and you may be one of those people. Perhaps you have never known the love and acceptance of other people in a way that really meant a lot to you. I don’t know. Now, even if you have known a better background, it is amazing to look at a verse like this and realize that no matter what our background has been, no matter how difficult life might have been for you, or how unwanted or unloved you may feel right at this moment, you have the most important being in the whole universe that reached out and in eternity past and chose you! He chose YOU! He hand-picked you for Himself from the foundation of the earth! Why would He do that? On what basis? . . .
