Rejecting the Outcome of God’s Election

Midterm elections are a big deal, but there’s a much bigger election to fix our eyes on.

Election Day 2022 is history — well, except for the process of counting all the votes. If past history is any indication, that may take a while.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t take my responsibility to exercise my right to participate in our republic very seriously. I just didn’t vote. But I realized a long time ago that it’s better to make my voice heard than to complain about the outcome after the fact.

Still, deciding who to vote for can be an overwhelming process what with all the TV ads and mailers that fill our mailboxes. I can’t imagine who would be swayed by ads and mailers because my criteria for electing a political candidate aren’t based on what they say in their campaign advertising. Instead, I base my decision on what they’ve actually done — on what they’ve said in the years before the polls open.

My criteria are simple: Do they support life? Are they confused about gender? Are they committed to getting the criminals off of the streets? But most importantly, I want to know if they believe our rights come from government or that our rights are endowed to us by our creator.

I say this because the greatest election of all time was held before the creation of the world when the Father elected us in Christ. The word “elect” simply means to choose or to pick out. That’s what we do when we go to the polls, and that’s what God did before he ever made a single human being. He chose us.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

—Ephesians 1:4

However, even though he has chosen us, many have made the sad mistake of rejecting the outcome of God’s election. I did it for too long. I was an election denier before election denier was even a thing. There was no flaw in God’s election process, but I wanted no part of it. 

Whether or not I accept the outcome of God’s election has no bearing on the real outcome. I was chosen! Elected! Picked! And there is nothing I can do about that. What I can do, to my own detriment, is to refuse to live in his election. To deny his sovereignty! To cast off his grace and mercy and live my life the way I want to live it. 

I say that I did that to my own detriment because of what James says:

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

—James 4:4

Trust me when I say you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to live as an enemy of the one who not only made you but chose you and died and was raised from the dead for you. The reason that would be a bad decision is that when you cast God aside, you cast reason and logic aside too. Then you begin to listen to and believe the lies of the one who hates you. After you go down that rabbit hole, the only outcome is death unless someone frees you from the chains of Satan.

Thanks be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! He died and was raised to rescue us from the kingdom of Satan and move us into the kingdom of the one who loves us. 

National and local elections are a big deal. I get that! But the election that took place in the heavens before the cosmos was created is the biggest election ever. It’s a really big deal.

Most of these politicians have no clue of what we’re talking about. But I suspect that most of you do know. I would encourage you to turn off the cable news shows as the pundits drone on about the implications of the midterms and fix your eyes and hearts on Jesus who elected you to live in him and he in you before the first atom was ever created.

Image credit: Adapted from graphic by Nick Youngson, Alpha Stock Images | CC BY-SA 3.0