Serve

you whom I took from the ends of the earth,

and called from its farthest corners,

saying to you, “You are my servant,

I have chosen you and not cast you off”

Isaiah 41:9

All other belief systems are ultimately about me, myself and I: my choices, my decisions, my actions. I choose to keep the rules, to observe the pillars, to idolise the iThing, whatever it may be. I worship the celebrity, the team, the high.

The Bible describes something unique. It's not primarily about us and our choice whether or not to worship God. It's the fact that God has chosen for himself a people out of the world to be his own precious possession.

Initially this was the Israelite people, through whom God was to bless the world. Now the blessings have come to us all over the world in the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham was taken from the ends of the earth to the promised land. Jesus has gone from the promised land to the ends of the earth. And now we all can go from the ends of the earth to the promised land of a new creation.

Has God cast off Israel? It looked like it when Isaiah wrote: the Assyrians were knocking at the door and the Babylonians would take them off into exile. It does today as most Jewish people largely reject Jesus the Messiah. But the new testament promises an ingathering of the Jews into God's people in the last days. And so all (spiritual) Israel will be saved.

"Lord God, thank you so much for choosing us, though we would never naturally have chosen you. Thank you that now we who were not a people are now the people of God. Thank you for never casting us off, to the glory of your name, amen"