Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and set apart by the Spirit for obeying Yeshua the Messiah.Without having seen him, you love him. Without seeing him now, but trusting in him, you continue to be full of joy that is glorious beyond words. And you are receiving what your trust is aiming at, namely, your deliverance.1 Peter 1:2 y 8-9
Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. And set apart by the Holy Spirit for obeying Yeshua the Messiah. This verse sums up the entirety of the bible and its doctrine, yet the religious people do not see it. WHY? ANd what does it mean to be “chosen?”
There is a lot of teaching in these verses. First is the simple name of the Lord, Yeshua who is the Messiah, not Jesus Christ. The chosen know his name and him! Yeshua reveals himself to the chosen ones, but only after they are called by the Father. Have you been called?
I remember the first time I heard God speak, I knew in that moment I was being called, although I had no idea anything about what would be coming and what it all entailed. What God led me through is so much different than what any religion I have ever went to tells us God is about. And one of the biggest lies is they make it about a religion or bible and not about knowing and obeying God. Note it says in the verse above “set apart by the Spirit for obeying Yeshua. It is not speaking of going to a religious church to know Jesus, or reading your bible to know Jesus. You will never know the Lord Yeshua by any other way than by hearing and obeying him.
It continues about “without seeing him…” Yeshua said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who do not see yet believe.” I have never seen the Lord yet his voice when he speaks is full of power and you know his authority. It is easy to disobey men’s authority or a bible. But to hear the Lord you know you must obey or die in your sin. We are aiming at our deliverance. I cannot even begin to explain to anyone the difference between hearing God and hearing a preacher and their version of the bible and what god wants. Their god is weak and cannot set you free. My God Yeshua is extremely strong, no one is more powerful and he can set you free if you obey him and let him. The problem is most people believe in their religious men teachers and not in Yeshua, so they never come to understand and are never called or chosen.
This is why I was chosen, God the Father knew since the beginning I would at some point in my life go through hell on earth and really seek him. He also knows those who go through things and keep going back to the same sin and dysfunction religious doctrine that causes and keeps them in the sin and dysfunction.
The funny thing about writing this is it seems silly to even write it. Because you either are or are not going to be called by the Father. Because you either have gone through, or are going to go through something seriously painful and through it seek the truth and the Lord, just like me. Or you won’t and stay in your sinful life wondering why God does not love you and bless you.
He does not hear sinners. He does not bless you in your sin, he cannot. It is actually the opposite. We seem to pay attention to the new testament and not the old thinking God has somehow changed. But he is the same today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow. So here is who God was and still is and always will be.
He shows me often, including this morning about how he protected the Jews, most of the time. When the Jews walked with him and obeyed him, no other country could overcome them. Most of the battles or wars were not even fought by the Jews, God destroyed them all by Himself. Sometimes he turned them against each other, sometimes he sent bees. Sometimes the walls around the city fell down simply because of marching and blowing horns for 7 days… He helped little men kill giants and lions and bears with a simple sling shot. For some reason we think we need a mighty army of well trained men and missiles and bombs and fast jets…
This is just another example of how we rely on ourselves and our knowledge and not on God. And even if he allows us to live and thrive in this lifetime, you still pay the price in the next life. This is not “the working out what God is working in you,” is all about.
As a salesman, I have been taught to plan everything. Count how many people you call to get so many appointments which will then equal x number of sales. And it works to a point. But like now in real estate sales, I can call all day long and it will not result in sales. People either have the money and desire to buy something or they don’t. Marketing is about finding the ones who are looking. And now today it is very few. So your numbers in the good times are extremely good and now are extremely bad. And not a thing you can do about it on either side.
Now what I do and have done in the last 15 or so years since really coming to know Yeshua is just hear and obey him. Before I ran a rat race, in him I prospered big time. Most of it is because of the wisdom he teaches through obeying. A big chunk is because he teaches you a much simpler life, which costs a lot less. But all of it comes from obedience to his voice, which brings success and most importantly salvation.
And lastly as I have said many times, I see the sin in others and how it affects them. And I see how the sin in my old man’s life affected me for the bad. Keeping you down and sick and poor. But mostly how dark it was and how even though I never gave it a thought, how my salvation was not worked out. Which means most of you have not worked out what God is working in you because you do not know him. I thought my catholic religion would save me, because that was what they taught. But now I know it is a big lie. And I am thankful God separated me, chose me and pulled me from the ashes of my sin and made me into a new man through my obedience to him. I now know there is no other way to the Father except through this obedience to the voice of the son. Any other way is or person is a thief trying to enter the fold through another way other than the front gate which is the way the Lord enters. This narrow path is sooooo hard to find, very few find it, why? Because you have religion and men and your bible but you do not know the Lord. It is easy to ignore men teachers and pretend you are good when you are evil. And they go along with the lie because you fill their seats and pay tithes which they want. But when you know Yeshua it is impossible to pretend, Yeshua does not pretend and will not let you pretend. Yeshua does not care about your church attendance and tithes or money. He cares about your heart, is it right with God and do you obey him unto righteousness, or do you not?
I will finish with this from 1 Peter 1, “As people who obey God, do not let yourselves be shaped by the evil desires you used to have when you were still ignorant. On the contrary, following the Holy One who called you, become holy yourselves in your entire way of life; since the Tanakh says, you are to be holy as he is Holy.”
As people who obey God, not shaped by evil desires… when you were still ignorant. Do you get it? Do not let your evil desires shape you, but obey God unto righteousness. You cannot even understand the things with God which are righteous until you obey him. It is through obedience that you come to know the ways of God. He does not give you wisdom to then obey, he expects you to obey and then he gives wisdom. But most people do not want to obey him, and follow him. We want to obey the lust of our flesh and find a doctrine that supports it, even if that support is to turn a blind eye to it.