Learning To Be Happy About Being Chosen

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
John 15:16-17 NKJV

Do you believe in Creation?
Do you really believe God Almighty, Jehovah created you?
If you believe that God created you, then why did He create you?
Do you know for what reason and purpose God made you?

First I firmly believe we were created in the image of God by God and second I firmly believe we were created with purpose and reason. I do not believe we are an oops on God’s chart, any of us.
No one else may have wanted you or no one may have wanted me, but God does and has a plan, a purpose and a reason for me and you to walk through this life.
The sooner I realize this and also get a direction of His purpose, the sooner I can enjoy life and living for God in a way I never have.

I am afraid too many people spend too many of their days bemoaning the fact that they are not what they wish they were. Yes, all of us can and need to do a better job being all of what God wants us to be but we also need to find the trail of that direction and with joy, grow the abilities God has placed in our life. (Matthew 25:14-15)
If you want to enjoy living for God, zero in on what He designed you for and be excited being what He made you to be. When I say people spend too many of their days bemoaning the fact that they are not what they wished they were, I am talking about people who are not happy to be chosen. They are not happy being what God designed them to be. They want to be someone else.

Too many people in the church are blowing precious time pouting over the fact that they are not getting to do what someone else is getting to do.
This is like a Gazelle trying to be a Cheetah. Both are designed by God to be very fast runners. Both were created to live and perform in the same country or environment. But the moment a Gazelle tries to fill the role of a Cheetah is the day it will stop living. The same is true for the Cheetah. The Gazelle can fret and bemoan the actuality it is not a Cheetah but that will never change the fact it is not and can never be. Every moment spent crying over this fact is lost time being what God made it to be.

Every day you and I spend crying over the fact we are not getting to be and do what we would rather be and do is time lost, and time without production. God called you to be who you are and what you should be. The sooner we learn this the quicker we can enjoy being all God designed us to be.
God put us in our position to fill a purpose. If we want to enjoy being all we can be for God we desperately need to learn to be happy in the fact we were chosen and chosen for a reason. Then we need to fulfill that reason.

“Value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the uses we make of our days. One may live long yet live very little.” M. DeMontaigne

God has a great plan He put together for you and only you. No one else has a DNA chain like you. You were made on purpose and with a purpose. Its time you and I stop wasting ours and God’s time fretting over the fact we are not getting to do what someone else is getting to do.

The sooner we find our lane of purpose the sooner we will get to live with a smile on our face.
We cannot be intimidated and dismayed over the fact that we are not someone else.

Read the list of diciples in Matthew 10:1-4
1 He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. NIV

 The book of Mark, Luke and also Acts give us this list again.

Four of the guys are never mentioned again outside these lists. Two of them, Thomas because of his doubting and Matthew because of the dinner he had to introduce Jesus to his friends, are only mentioned a couple of more times. There is a lengthy story of Philip coming to Jesus and then he is most know for his worry over how much money it was going to take to feed the 5000 and he also ask Jesus to show them the Father. This is all we read of him. Judas is known for betraying Jesus. Andrew’s is only claim to fame was the fact he brought Peter to meet Jesus.

Outside this we only read and hear about how many great things Peter, James and John did.
It was always Peter James and John. Peter preached here and healed this one and wrote this or saw this vision. On and on the list goes of the great things these three did.
We never get to read the book of Thaddaeus or we are never told how great a preacher Bartholomew was. Over half of the twelve disciples are never heard of again by name.

Where they important to the early church? YES!
Did they have a purpose and was used of God? YES!
Did they matter to the kingdom of the Lord? YES!
It is evident that they knew their purpose and they understood the reason God saved them and they were happy to do just that.

As you read the book of Acts you find other’s who are written about and greatly used of God. Men like another Philip and Stephen, men like Barnabas and Paul. You never read where Bartholomew and James the son of Alphaeus ever complained and pouted over the fact they didn’t get the breaks that Peter got and how that jonnie-come-lately, Paul wrote over 75% of the New Testament and went on two mission trips.
Each of these men knew their purpose, they understood their abilities and the talents God had handed them and they grew them and were happy doing the plan of God.

Yes, there are several others mentioned in the book of Acts, that seems to get bend out of shape but their end is horrible and unfulfilled. People like Ananias and Sapphira, and Simon the sorcerer, he became a believer the Bible says and followed Philip and was wowed by the anointing of God. But when Peter and John show up to lay hands on people he saddled up to them with intentions of wanting to be able to do something that Philip had not been able to do. Open the door to the Samaritans. Peter opened his mail for him and told him he was acting out of a bitter heart and in the bonds of iniquity. Acts 8:9-24

Jealousy and pouting over what you are not will give you a very bitter heart and you will never be able to be what God meant you to be. We have to learn to be happy about being chosen to do what we were purposed to do.
Look at a man named Ananias who steps onto the pages of scripture long enough to wittiness to Paul and baptize him in Jesus name. Ananias seems to ride off into the sunset of the scriptures and we never hear of him again.
Was he important to the kingdom of God?
Was his abilities needed in the church? Yes!
Just because we never hear of him again, does he lose his importance to God’s purpose? No!
Somewhere in the early church doing day to day things for God, no doubt was a man named Ananias working for God with a smile on his face.

You may say or think, you are not getting to do what you feel you should be doing. There are a few things I want you to think about that I personally keep applying to my life along this line. I know what it is like to be looked over, not seeming to get the breaks. Matter-a-fact I get it pushed in my face still to this day. There are some questions I ask myself then about my purpose.

Am I preparing daily for what I feel God wants me to do?

You may say I don’t have to prepare I am ready. Be careful, you are getting close to taking the spirit of the one talented servant. Remember the Lord requires the enlarging of one’s gifts. If you are not enlarging your gifts then you have taken the spirit of the know-it-all one talented servant. (Matthew 25:14-30) You will not have a good end if you keep this spirit. I cannot just sit and wait I have to prepare myself, grow my abilities.

Has God opened a door of opportunity for my purpose?

A phrase I have lived by for years is that I can walk through any door God opens but I am not going to force any doors. I have found when I force doors I step into rooms of opportunity that I am not ready to perform in and/or are not ready to be evangelized. Rooms not ready for me to be there. I personally know what it is like to be in a place I had no business being. Because of that I experienced a set-back that cost me time. I have seen people force doors and find themselves so defeated that they lost hope and faith. Some never became what they were intended to become because of it. I have learned I don’t want to be any place that my gifts and God’s purpose for me hasn’t taken me there.

Am I comfortable enough being what God has planned on me being?

It’s easy to complain but the moment I realize that I can be everything God has planned for me is the moment I can be content. Philippians 4:11 I can be comfortable in what my God designed purpose is. Yet sometimes we do run low on patients.
There are two scripture my father would quote to me almost every time I complained about not getting what I felt I should have.

Psalm 37:3-8 NKJV

3 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.
6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret — it only causes harm.

Proverbs 18:16 NIV
A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great.

God will do His part if I do my part with a right spirit. I have to keep reminding myself it’s not my kingdom, it’s not my church. It belongs to God who will do with it as He sees fit.
Learn to dream about what God is dreaming about for you.

Stop day dreaming about things God doesn’t have in your purpose and learn to dream and catch a vision that God has planned for you. Its how we become happy being chosen.

Pray, seek God and listen to His Word, find His purpose for your life. Take a spiritual gifts test if you need be to understand your talents. Then ask yourself:

What does God really have for me? (Grow in that purpose)
What will I have to change about me to do what God wants me to do? (Lose hindering attitudes)
What am I doing daily to grow the abilities God gave me? (Study and prepare to not be ashamed. 2nd Timothy 2:15)

If you will get your life in His purpose that He designed for your life, you will find the greatest joy you ever knew living for Him. Stop wasting your days and learn to be happy being chosen to do His purpose.