Topic: God Chose You Before All Else [RICK WARREN Devotional 18 August 2022]
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God Chose You Before All Else
BY RICK WARREN — AUGUST 18, 2022
FROM THE FOUNDATION OF A LIFE WELL-LIVED
“Jesus treated us much better than we deserve. He made us acceptable to God and gave us the hope of eternal life.”
Titus 3:7 (CEV)
God likes you. It may seem others don’t like you. Or maybe you don’t like you. But God likes you and completely accepts you. In fact, God more than likes you. He loves you!
God’s acceptance is not based on your performance. In fact, it’s not based on anything you do. It’s based on who he is and what Jesus did. In a sense, God says to you: “You are acceptable because I created you, love you, and sent my Son to die for you.”
Titus 3:7 says, “Jesus treated us much better than we deserve. He made us acceptable to God and gave us the hope of eternal life” (CEV).
God’s acceptance is important to understand—because the deepest wounds in life often come from rejection. We’ve all experienced rejection. That’s why we spend much of our lives trying to earn acceptance from our parents, peers, and friends—from those we respect and from those we envy. This drive to be accepted influences the kinds of clothes we wear, cars we drive, houses we buy, and careers we choose.
Maybe, as a kid, you experienced rejection when people were being picked for a team, and you thought, “Dear God, please don’t let me be the last one chosen.” Or you felt this way when you weren’t chosen for an award or a promotion, and it affected your self-worth.
Here’s some good news: The Bible says in Ephesians 1:4, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” (NLT).
You have been chosen by God himself. What an incredible truth! Before he chose to make the sun, the oceans, the birds, and everything else, he chose you. That’s how acceptable you are to God.
Talk It Over
- How does past rejection affect the way you feel about yourself today? How does knowing that God completely accepts you soften any negative feelings you may have?
- In what ways do you try to earn acceptance from others? In what ways do you try to earn acceptance from God?
- One way you can respond to God’s acceptance is to accept others. Who in your life needs to know that they are accepted for who they are?
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