Acts 17:26 From one man he made every nation of men. That they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.’.

We each could have been born at any other time in history, in days of rampant persecution, in a war torn land, in abject poverty, perhaps in a village riddled with plague and disease. We could have been born in an age where it was illegal to own a bible, where you had to financially pay a priest to have your sins forgiven! But God chose us to be born at this time in history, and has drawn us together from every corner of the globe to be assembled and built as a spiritual army and as a loving bride. The church… the demonstration of God’s love and power on the earth.

Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. God never makes mistakes. He chose us as his own, it was a good choice.

Psalm 139:16-17 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts. God knew our every weakness, he knew our insecurities and the areas that we would fail, yet he chose us anyway! God has a plan and purpose for each of our lives, there are times we can’t see that plan, it can become obscured and blurred by the everyday mundane-ness of life, but it is a great and glorious plan. Paul says in Ephesians 2:20 we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. This truth should give us great confidence to face every challenge ahead, knowing
that God himself has chosen us and prepared great things for us.

Jesus chose twelve men, they were gathered from different walks of life, fishermen, doctors, tax collectors, men with different educational and social backgrounds, they certainly did not appear to be the “cream of the crop” or the “elite” of Israel, yet Jesus took them and fashioned a group of men, his disciples, who would “turn the world upside down” They did so because they believed in the man they followed. They dared to believe that he had made a good choice by choosing them. They dared to believe that the promise of the Holy Spirit that they received would enable them to effectively live as “competent ministers of the New Covenant”

They simply believed and trusted in who Jesus said they were, who we become is largely determined by three things.

1. An event in history 2000 years ago.
2. Who God says we are and his promises to us.
3. Our faith to believe. LET’S BELIEVE.