God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten and beloved Son as sacrificial lamb for the salvation of all people of every generation from the very beginning to the end. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news about this ever living and most powerful message of eternal salvation from the power of sin, death and Satan. All believers in the God’s supreme plan of redemption through grace are a chosen people who are constantly and continuously required to produce the fruits of salvation and thus glorify the living Lord God.

We, the chose and saved people, belong to various denominations of the one and only universal church, visible and invisible, of which our Lord Jesus Christ is the head, the King, the high priest and the sacrificial lamb of God. We have only one redeemer and mediator before the God of justice and righteousness. He is the only one who could plead for ours sins, failures, and shortcomings. He is also the supreme judge who will come in his Father’s glory to reward, to judge and condemn when the time ends. We are blessed to have the gift of Holy Spirit to dwell with and within us in order to help us in our lives, and the world cannot receive Him (John 14:17).

Believers in Christ Jesus are chosen to enjoy abundant life in this world as well as the world to come. In other words, we belong to the Kingdom of God. Anybody who repents and accepts Jesus as the personal savior belongs to the chose people of God. The Lord has a plan of salvation for the people who never had a chance of knowing the gospel of good news (Mathew 25:31-46). Followers of Jesus Christ who fail to carry out his commandments, produce fruits of salvation will be dropped from the Kingdom of God (John 15: 2-6, Mathew 7: 21 – 23). Let us not forget the fact and the truth that our rituals, ceremonies, traditions, man-made doctrines, and dogmas are not going to help us be true followers of Christ. They are just pacifiers. Salvation given to us, which is a free gift through God’s grace, needs to be translated into good works. Faith without actions is dead (James 2:26).

We, the chosen people, are set apart to carry out the teachings of Son of God who paid a price for our salvation. All his promises are for us. Let us not forget that we are a new creation and we are called to grow in Jesus Christ to reach his full stature within us. A Christian who does not grow in Christ is spiritually dead. A born-again Christian must grow by obeying the Lord’s teachings revealed to us in the New Testament. Let us remember that the old Israel, the chosen people, was punished when they disobeyed God. We, the believers, are the new spiritual Israel belonging to the Kingdom of God. We are called to worship our God in spirit and truth. To love Him with the fullness of soul, body and spirit, and to love our fellow human beings as the Lord loves us unconditionally. We are selected to have the privilege and honor to proclaim the good news of the gospel be a witness for God’s great plan of salvation. Amen.