Jacob Have I Loved

Years ago when I first started reading the Scriptures, I held a primarily Armenian philosophy when it came to man’s salvation. That is, I believed it was up to people to make a choice between God’s ways and their own ways, and that their salvation depended upon that choice.

But the more I read in the Word, the more Calvinist I become. I’ve done recent readings of how God “hardened” the heart of Pharaoh for His purpose (to reveal Himself both to His people and to the rest of the world), how He gave Joseph a vision of the future which caused him considerable trouble and which he did not ask for, and how Jacob the deceiver was preferred in God’s eyes over Esau (Romans 9:13).

These things can’t be explained away by modern Pentecostal/Charismatic theologians, who have a (good-intentioned) desire to keep the focus on people’s choice and personal responsibility.

Could Pharaoh have let the Hebrews go at the first request? Could Esau, the firstborn, have received Isaac’s blessing? Could Reuben, not Joseph, have been the rightful leader of his family? Did any of these people have a choice?

I’m not sure we do, either.

What inner passion compels us to seek God’s friendship and mourn hurting Him? What drives us to seek His face even when He seems contradictory or doesn’t meet our expectations in some way? Is it something of ourselves?

Absolutely not. The choice is not mine, but His. The desires, the prayers, the longings, the deep sighs for God, for reality...these emanate from God Himself within me.

“You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” - John 15:16

“...just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” - Ephesians 1:4-11