“For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14).
Have you ever been chosen for anything good in your lifetime thus far? It feels good when you are chosen by your teacher to do a special task because of your intellectual ability, or chosen to play on a sports team because of your athletic talent, or chosen to receive a special reward for the hard work you’ve done. Being chosen for the right reasons feels good. It makes you lift up your head and say, “I am good.”
Well, in the beginning of time, our Creator God, our Father, made all things in the heavens and earth through Jesus Christ, the Word—“Let there be . . . .” He called what He had made, including you, “good” (Genesis 1: 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). Goodness is an attribute of God that describes Him as holy, pure, and righteous. In other words, goodness is godliness which can be seen in our behavior (the way we think and subsequently speak and act) and comes from a pure heart. Goodness is a fruit or an evidence of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, the image of God, living inside you.
Your purpose here on earth is to live a lifestyle that reflects this image of God planted in you on the day you were conceived in your mother’s womb. This reflection is your light, your talents and gifts, what makes you unique from any other person created. Can you image, with all the billions of people on this planet, that God can give each and every one of us something that no one else has? We are each made special for our unique purpose here on earth. God’s purpose means God’s original intent, original plan, He set for you even before you were born. It’s just that the powers of darkness get everything all crazy and convoluted, and we get distracted, lose our focus on who we were called to be, and flow with the world and its false imagery.
Even though we may get caught up in the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) and fall to sin, the mystery of the Kingdom of God is that He doesn’t forget who you are, who He created who you to be from the beginning. He sees you as the original intent in which He formed you, which will give you a beautiful ending, His masterpiece. Change your mirror, beloved, and make a conscious effort to see the real you, fulfilling the purpose, the goodness, of the One who made you. Yes, your father and mother formed you physically, but you are so much more than that. You are a spirit-being housed in a physical body. It is that spirit-being who knows who God is, always has, always will. And no matter how much you force to quench the life out of that beautiful image inside of you, God still sees the real you. And He calls you, “Come to Me, beloved, I will by no means reject you or turn you away (John 6:37). You are worthy—valuable, precious, good.”
So one day Jesus was passing by a multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting by a pool whose moving water healed every kind of sickness. But they had to wait for the moving of this water and then be the first one to get into the pool. And there was a man there who had a sickness for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me” (John 5:1-7).
This is the condition of the spirit-being, or soul, of many today. The “moving of the healing water” is the gospel call. When the pure Word of God is preached, God’s Holy Spirit gets to working inside the conscience of man, and quickens or moves his spirit-being to make a choice on behalf of the destiny of his soul. Every created being is predestined to return to God. Though God is sovereign (a supreme ruler), He does not force His will on man, but allows man to make a choice to claim responsibility (the effect or result) for his own actions. He does this so that man can never shift the blame for the consequences of his ungodly choices on Him, as Adam and Even did in the Garden of Eden when they sinned (Genesis 3:8-13).
There are two kinds of God’s calling. One is a general call to repent and be saved (Isaiah 55:11 and Matthew 11:28). This general call makes a man cognizant, or aware, of and responsible for what he ought to do. The other is an efficacious call (John 6:37, 44 and Romans 8:29-30). The efficacious call adds to the general call the enablement , the grace necessary to do it—to repent and be saved (Ephesians 2:8). This can only be done when a heart believes or exercises faith and allows the “moving water”, God’s Holy (Good) Spirit, to effect (efficacious) his soul to accept the purpose, the original plan, of God.
The man at the pool was there for a long time, waiting. Why was he waiting? He seemed to have tried getting into the pool but failed so many times, he gave up, so he made himself comfortable there waddling in self-pity. The soul today who is aware of the “moving water” seems paralyzed to try to get into the pool, to accept the necessity of repenting, of receiving the healing it so desperately seeks. ”Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me”. Jesus said, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (Read John 5:8-15).
Jesus was passing by, then gave an efficacious call. Dearly beloved of God, Jesus is still passing by. "Rise, take up your sickbed, throw it away, and walk with determination to Jesus." Determination is that focused, undistracted, thrust, or force, in you to claim what you seek. Repentance, for the seeker, is the answer to the questions, “Why am I here? Why was I born?” Repentance is the claiming of your soul back to its original design or place in God’s creation, that place of innocence, holiness, purity and right relationship, or unity, with God, the Father (the Procreator), God, the Son (Jesus, the living Word), and God, the Holy Spirit (the Truth).
© 2024 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved. Published by The Light In Me Enterprise. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The artwork depicted in the blog article is carefully selected to draw out the points made for healing of the soul, and by no means promote any ideologies from the various artists unless they are found in the center of God's perfect will.
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