THE BEGINNING OF ELECTION

Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”  Romans 9:7-8

         Jewish history began with election.  Abraham did not go looking for God.  God came looking for him.  There was no possible way for Abraham to find God without God’s intervention.  He lived in Ur, a place where everyone worshipped idols.  No one there had ever heard of the true God.  Abraham’s entire generational ancestry practiced paganism.  Who could witness to him?

         God came looking for him and called him out from his family and his land.  He was to leave his family’s idols, go with God, and never look back.  Sounds like salvation, doesn’t it?  

         Then came Isaac.  God chose, from Abraham’s two sons, whom He was going to bless and call to Himself.  Abraham had a son through natural efforts with Hagar.  Ishmael was passed over.  The one God would choose to bless would be the product of His own miraculous intervention.  When physical bodies were too old to conceive, and Sarah’s womb was too old to carry a child, God’s hand touched them somehow and made the impossible possible.  The one who would be chosen would be Isaac – the child of a supernatural birth.

         The miraculous work of God in bringing about the life of Isaac out of a dead womb is what happens to every child of God in spiritual realms.  I cannot manufacture spiritual life in myself.  I am spiritually dead. (Eph.2:1)  I am Sarah – with no hope of bringing new life about.  God must come and supernaturally touch my spiritual womb, my spirit, and bring life to it.  With that touch comes a call to leave the idols of my past and follow Him.

         At that point, I become as peculiar to the world as Abraham was.  As a Christian, I am never homogenous with my environment.  Choosing the way of righteousness (the new appetite of my resurrected spirit), sets me apart.  When family members keep clutching their idols, my choices to worship only God with my life will separate me from their mainstream.  When this separation happens within society, it’s tolerable.  When the sword cuts into the family fabric, there is the sound of tearing and that is excruciating.

         To be the elect of God brings humility and joy but it also brings a high cost.  Daily sanctification.

I am not a natural child of Abraham.  But You, miraculously, have made me his spiritual child.   This makes me so happy.  Thank you!  Amen