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BY PASTOR BRANDON YOUNG
I remember back in elementary and middle school when we would pick teams to play basketball or football on the playground. The best players were chosen as the captains, and then they chose the players for their team. We all stood anticipating the moment the captains would call our names. The captains picked first who they thought would make the best teammates. We all wanted to be chosen by the captain. Then, we had to live up to the standards and the expectations. We had to perform to win the game.
Chosen means to be selected as the best or most appropriate. Jesus is the captain of all captains. He is putting together a team, but unlike the captains I mentioned above, he chooses individuals who are not the best or most fitting. If we look back into the scriptures, we will find that Jesus chose the meek, lowly, humble, poor, and the weak to carry out his plans. Willing individuals empowered by Jesus! God made David, a lowly shepherd boy, King of Israel, and later invited the shepherds to His Son’s birth in the small sheep market of Bethlehem. Throughout the Bible, God chooses what man would reject. I am so glad God chooses the little people like me and you. We have all been chosen!
John 15:16 says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.” Jesus has chosen us all, and we have a great responsibility to fulfill his will. As we think about the first Christmas, we find a young man and woman who had been chosen by God the Father to be the surrogate parents of His only Son. Luke 1:28 reads, “And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Mary was highly favored by the Lord, and He assigned her a task. This was her reply in Luke 1:38, “And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.” Mary took her assignment very seriously and was willing to do what He had asked. Joseph was also chosen, and he listened to the angel of God and made Mary his wife. Here we are over two thousand years later still admiring Mary and Joseph.
You have been chosen by the Lord and He has perfect plan for your life. Will you accept His will and His mission? 1 Peter 2:9 says, “But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” We have been chosen for such a time as this, and the world needs to see the marvelous light of the Lord in each one of us. Please understand the Lord wants each one of us on His team, and you have a position. Please stop making excuses as to why you can’t and know you CAN! Be like Mary.
(Brandon Young is pastor at Harmony Free Will Baptist Church, Hampton)