He Picked You

Mar 15, 2022

"You didn't choose me. I chose you."

- Jesus, John 15:16

"Until God opens the next door… praise Him in the doorway!"

- Anonymous

Anyone feeling passed over… invisible… unappreciated… today? I don't know about you, but sometimes I just need to know that people "see me." Yesterday, Candace took our four year old granddaughter, Shiloh, on a date. Positioned between a one year old, who's just starting to walk, and a six year old drama queen, Shiloh sometimes does not get the attention the other two do… especially since she's very low maintenance. So, Grandma picked up some Chick-Fil-A and they went to a park to picnic.

After lunch, Shiloh went over to play on the swings when a little two year old ran up to her and started following her around. This toddler picked Shiloh out from all the other kids and just thought she was "the bomb." She imitated her, played with her, laughed with her, listened to her. She was totally enamored with Shiloh! When it was time to go, this little girl began to cry. As her mother tried to console her, Shiloh looked at Candace and said very matter-of-factly, "She just loves me!" Ha-Ha… the heart confidence was back!

That's what happens to the human heart when you know someone has picked you out from the crowd.

In Luke 5:27, Levi, a tax collector, was sitting at his booth in a crowded marketplace. As a tax collector, Levi was not only despised by the Jewish people, but he was also dismissed by the Romans as a necessary evil. Nobody wanted to hang out with him… nobody "saw" him… except Jesus.

Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector's booth. “Follow me and be my disciple [be my friend],” Jesus said to him.

- Luke 5:27

What did Levi do? He went out and threw a party… with Jesus, his new friend, as the quest of honor. Why? Because his heart was full! Listen… all of this means that if you lived in the first century with all of your wierdities and your odd habits and your strangeness and your peculiar background and with all the stuff you can't control - if you lived in the first century, and Jesus walked by, He would SEE you! Why? Because He likes you! It's not just that "God so loved the world,” but that Jesus likes you, and He chooses to hang out with You!

He Picked You

That's what happens to the human heart when you know someone has picked you out from the crowd.

Remember this: Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Godhead, picked you out from the crowd!

AMEN