God’s Choices & His Chosen

Recently, I’ve been reading through Genesis again. It must be said there is a certain shock value to reading the Old Testament. Mainly, I believe it is because there is so much cultural difference between then and now, but also the grim reminder that the people in Scripture weren’t the Super Saints like we suppose they would be. What I am reminded of whether it is Abraham or Lot in Genesis, or King David sometime later, God chose some pretty messy people to tell his story through the ages.

Consider that Noah was a drunk, Abraham was a liar, Lot was willing to give his daughters away to the sexually immoral, Moses murdered, Rahab (the umpteenth grandmother of Jesus) was a prostitute, King David was a murderer and adulterer to say the least, Simon, who was an Apostle, (the Zealot) would have been considered a terrorist in our day, and Paul (when he was Saul) murdered Christians. Could you imagine Paul at a Celebrate Recovery or AA meeting? “Hi, I’m Paul. I’m a recovering Christian killer.” Yet, Paul specifically was ordained to write most of what is known as the New Testament. Every man or woman God ever used in Scripture could have gone to prison or rehab.

Many people will read this and question God because of the people he used, but when I read this, I see what a glorious and gracious God He really is. He used the people that sinful society would consider their outcast to tell the most important story of all, HIS! I get excited when I think that God really is like this, in that, He uses the broken things to do His business. We are all broken, therefore, we are all by default candidates for God to use.