Did you know you were chosen by God and then born of God and sought by God and kept by God?
CHOSEN BY GOD
[1]“He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Cor 5:5).
Did you know you were chosen by God and then born of God and sought by God and kept by God? Dead men or women cannot choose Christ (Eph 2:1-5). Dead men cannot choose anything but to decay. Only men and women made alive by the Spirit can. God’s Word says it was “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph 1:13).
God does not change His mind (Mal 3:6). The Holy Spirit’s seal cannot be broken. The Apostle Paul says God “chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love” (Eph 1:4).
We did not choose Him but He chose us. The Lord said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16a). First Peter 1:3-4 states, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”
(vv. 4) “This inheritance is kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” Since it’s kept in heaven, who can touch it?! It’ll be there waiting for us because it’s permanent (can never perish, spoil or fade).
BORN OF GOD
We were born of God from above (John 3:3-7), so can we take any credit for our own natural birth? Did we choose to be born or the time and place? No! Since it’s kept in heaven, who can touch it?! It’ll be there waiting for us because it’s permanent (can never perish, spoil or fade).
[2]
In the same way, God causes us to be born again. The Apostle John writes, “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
Just as it was not our will to be born physically, it was God’s decision for our being born again, so it was not our will to be born again…but God’s will and God’s will alone! What JOY that should bring us!
Back to 1 Peter 1:3 which tells us, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” He caused us to be born again; not something we came up with. What an awesome God we serve!
SOUGHT BY GOD
[3]
I cannot count the number of people who have contacted me that “feel” like they’ve lost their salvation, but how can they lose what they never gained in the first place?
Feelings are vastly overrated and are the shallowest part of human understanding, so we can feel like this or that will happen, but our feelings do not impact or negate what is true. We might feel lost after we’re saved, but John 10:27-29 gives us great assurance, where Jesus says of His sheep, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
Who can snatch believer’s out of the hands of the Father and Jesus Christ!? That’s a rhetorical question of course, because it’s not possible.
John 6:37, 39 gives us more confidence in our election and calling, as Jesus says dogmatically, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out…This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.” IJesus doesn’t lose things or people, and it is God’s will that not one of us will ever be cast out of His presence. God cannot lie, so that’s iron-clad assurance in our eternal life.
KEPT BY GOD
If it were up to us to keep our salvation, we’d lose it every day! If it were up to me to stay saved, I’d lose my salvation every five minutes…and I’d lose it again and again, but is that possible?
[4]
Remember it is not we who keep ourselves saved, but God “who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 1:24).
The Apostle Paul was so sure he and the saints would be in the kingdom that he could confidently say, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). We begin stuff we don’t finish, but God finish’s what He begins.
In speaking to Martha, “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this” (John 11:25-26)? Well? Do you believe this?
Jesus prayed to the Father, “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12). Don’t you think the Father heard and would answer Jesus’ prayer? Oh yeah.
[5]
With Jesus going to the cross, the Lord prays to the Father, “I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:11).
Notice that before Calvary, Jesus kept them but now, at Calvary, Jesus passes this on to the Father to “keep them in your name” because Jesus will be taking on our sins at the cross. So either way, we are kept by God Himself and the very power of God.
Romans 8:35, 38-39 gives us all we need to pillow our head on tonight, as the comforting Word says,
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [That’s a rhetorical question.]
Shall tribulation [meaning “being squeezed, pressure put on”]
or distress [“being pressed together, coerce”]
or persecution [for your faith in Christ],
or famine or nakedness [poverty, homelessness]
or peril [literally, “to attempt danger, take risks”]
or sword” [execution, martyrdom]? …
The Apostle Paul answers his very own rhetorical questions with conclusive answers!
“For I am persuaded that neither death [even if killed, remember John 11:25-26]
nor life [anything done to you while living],
nor angels [fallen or otherwise]
nor principalities nor powers [demonic powers, mankind authorities]
nor things present [nothing that happens today]
nor things to come [nothing that happens tomorrow]
nor height nor depth [nothing too tall to scale or deep to plumb that would keep us from God]
nor any other created thing [demons, Satan, humans, ourselves…everything but God Who is uncreated],
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 
[6]
Conclusion
I pray you have put your trust in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If that has not happened yet, my friend, you are in real danger of hell fire. And I mean, in immediate danger. You’re one breath, one heartbeat…one accident away from eternity when it will be too late to repent. Today is the best day to believe (2 Cor 6:2) since tomorrow is no guarantee. If Jesus Christ came today, here is your fate (Matt 7:21-23). This is why I plead with you as you read this, repent today…and I mean right now. Put your trust in Jesus Christ. If you do not, you will face God’s judgment after death guaranteed (Heb 9:27) or at Jesus Christ’s appearance (Rev 20:12-15), which could happen at any moment.
Here is some related reading for you: Can a Christian Lose Their Salvation? A Biblical Analysis [7]
Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), Crossway Bibles. (2007). ESV: Study Bible: English standard version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.