Open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 7:6 and 1 Peter 2:9. I like to read from the Amplified Bible. I would suggest that you write these Scriptures down until you have them memorized. Our enemy and accuser, Satan, along with the negative side of our inner person are always talking to us. Boot the devil and negativity out of your brain; fight back in your minds with the Word of God. Ephesians 6 teaches us that the Word of God is a weapon. You cannot use a weapon that you don't know. Deuteronomy 7:6 (Amp) in the Old Testament says, For you are a holy and set-apart people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a special people to Himself out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.
God was speaking to the nation He had chosen from the bloodline of Abraham and Sarah; the Israelites. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. So if He had chosen people in the past; He has chosen people today; and He will have chosen people throughout eternity. 1 Peter 2:9 in the New Testament says, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, [God's] own purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. God calling you out of darkness into His marvelous light is a snapshot of what salvation is. Sin is darkness. God is Light.
He is also complex. God is a multiple of one as 1 X 1 X 1 = 1 God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit. When God the Holy Spirit presents Himself to you John 16:8 says that He convicts, convinces and brings demonstration to you about what is sin, what is righteousness, and what is judgment. Since God is perfect; and we are not; God has to teach us His ways. Some of His ways are expressed in the Ten Commandments. They are a tough set of teachings to follow. I will not go through all ten but some are to love the Lord your God with all your being. God I cannot see, but man I can.
I have been drawn away from my First Love God at various times in my life due to conscious and unconscious evil desires and dealing with corrupt and compromised characters. Exodus 20:13 (Amp) seems easy to keep; it says, You shall not commit murder. But then Jesus says in Matthew 5:21 if you are angry with your brother you are guilty of murder. I have had deep-seated anger against some individuals. How about you? You don't have to raise your hands or say anything out loud, but answer the question in your inner person. I have a couple questions today. Exodus 20:14 (Amp) says, You shall not commit adultery. Adultery is sex outside of marriage. Sex outside of marriage is common today. I did the common thing. How about you? Exodus 20:15 (Amp) says, You shall not steal. Now you don't have to rob a bank to steal. Have you ever taken some office supplies or kept change from a cashier that didn't belong to you?
Exodus 20:16 (Amp) says, You shall not witness falsely against your neighbor. That means don't lie. Exodus 20:17 (Amp) says, You shall not covet your neighbor's house, your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. Most of our neighbors today don't have oxen and donkeys, but some of them do have Lexus and BMW cars and four or more bedroom homes and closets full of clothes or other desirable things. Have you ever bought something or lusted after something you could not afford because you saw someone else with it? None of us have kept God's standards. And just in case we still think we have kept them James 2:10 (Amp) says, For whosoever keeps the Law [as a] whole but stumbles and offends in one [single instance] has become guilty of [breaking] all of it. If you have told even one lie in your lifetime, you are a sinner in need of the Savior Jesus.
Without getting into the Adam and Eve story we all have enough sin to reap the wages of sin. Romans 6:23 teaches us that sin has the wage or consequence of death; this death is not only physical death but eternal death commonly called hell, the lake of fire or the furnace of fire. We mere mortals are unable to live according to God's ways and are unable to have a right relationship with God; this is a description of righteousness; and we are unable to work for righteousness because God is perfect; and we are not.
Yet God came up with a way to bridge the gap between His perfection and our imperfection. God the Father sent God the Son Jesus Christ to come to the rescue. Jesus saves us from the wage or consequence of sin, which is eternal death, and gives us eternal life by defeating death. Jesus died for our sins; He paid the wage or consequence of sin. Here's how He did it. More than 2,000 years ago Jesus was born into the human race as a male. He lived His life without even one sin. Then He was condemned of a crime falsely and sentenced to crucifixion. Jesus died on a cross in Calvary, Israel, was buried and rose from death three days later. His death and resurrection paid the wage or consequence for sin because death couldn't hold him in the grave like it has held people in the grave from the beginning of time.
Without Jesus we would face the judgment of God. The judgment of God is eternal death for sinners not saved by Jesus. When the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and shows you Jesus is the way to a right relationship with God the Father, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is your Savior and Lord. Now that you are no longer under the judgment of God, God gives you eternal life. Eternal life is not just living forever. Eternal life is a now and forever relationship with God. John 17:3 defines eternal life. John 17:3 (Amp) says, And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah,) Whom You have sent.
If you are a follower of God, He had you in mind and His missions for your life long before you confessed Him with your mouth and believed in Him in your heart. He even called you for Himself before you were born and even before God created the world. Ephesians 1:4-5 (Amp) says, Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love. For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [because it pleased Him and was His kind intent]
You are not a mistake; you are part of God's master plan. The Apostle Paul when he was still called by the name of Saul and without a relationship with the Savior Jesus tried to revile and ruin the church of Jesus Christ; Saul was in his mess creating mayhem and murder against the church of God, but God had a mission for Saul; and it was to serve God and people. Paul speaking in Galatians 1:15-16 (Amp) says God chose Paul and set him apart for Himself before Paul was born; and God had called Paul by His grace. Grace is God's undeserved favor and blessing. What mess and mayhem has God brought you out of? Are you still in mess and mayhem without God?
If you don't know God and even if you do, today is a good day to talk to God and say something to Him like Psalm 139:23-24 (Amp) which says, Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. This is not a prayer of persecution but one seeking the promises and perfection of God. For God is not out to get us; He is out to make us better. Stop listening to the devil's lies telling you God is an ogre out to kill the joy of life.
God wants what is good for our lives. Salvation isn't just a start it is a never-ending journey where God takes us through life experiences that mold us more and more into the perfect person He is. Not that we will be perfect in this life, but in the next life we will. When we die God wants us ready to live in a place with Him where there is no sorrow or mourning or grief or pain or death. It's a place without lying and jealously and envy and covetousness and bitterness and backstabbing and hatred and harm and stress and strife. We don't have to wait until we go to heaven for the blessings of God. We get a taste of some of the blessings of God right now in this life. In John 10:10 Jesus says, . . . I came that they have and enjoy life and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). Salvation is God has selected you for a successful life now and forever. You are God's chosen race, royal priesthood, dedicated nation, [God's] own purchased, special people. God has called you out of the darkness of sin into His marvelous Light.