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Home/Featured/If You’re Successful, Don’t Rejoice in Your Success

If You’re Successful, Don’t Rejoice in Your Success

Rejoice that God wrote your name in the Lamb’s book of life when he chose you in Christ in eternity past.

Written by Mark Altrogge | Wednesday, May 4, 2016

God inscribed our names in his registry before the foundation of the world, before creating the heavens, before flinging the galaxies across the sky. He chose us in the misty eons of eternity past, long before angels existed. God chose us before we were born, or had done anything good or bad.

 

“Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Jesus blesses those who believe in him with grace and gifts of the Spirit. He gives us good works to walk in. He uses us to accomplish all kinds of things for him. But we’re not to rejoice in power, gifts or success, we’re to rejoice in our salvation. Rejoice that God wrote your name in the Lamb’s book of life when he chose you in Christ in eternity past.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Ephesians 1:4

God inscribed our names in his registry before the foundation of the world, before creating the heavens, before flinging the galaxies across the sky. He chose us in the misty eons of eternity past, long before angels existed. God chose us before we were born, or had done anything good or bad.

Incredibly, God wrote our names in heaven knowing we’d rebel and reject him, and nail his Son to the cross. He also elected us fully aware that even after he saved us we would still sin.

God didn’t set his love on us because of anything worthy or desirable in us. For we were only wicked and rebellious. We were all running as hard as we could, hell-bent toward destruction when God said, “I’ll save that one, and that one, and this one too.”

One of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 31:3:

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. For some reason found only in God he has loved us from all eternity.

This verse gives me great comfort. For if Jesus has loved me from all eternity, then he will continue his faithfulness and love toward me. He will love and keep me till the day I close my eyes in death. And when I open my eyes in heaven’s eternal morning, I’ll gaze upon the face of him who loved me with an everlasting love. And forever I will praise the One who wrote my name in heaven before I was born.

Take a moment and thank God for choosing you and saving you. Try to praise him throughout the day for loving you with an everlasting love.

Mark Altrogge has been the senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Indiana, PA for over 25 years, and is the author of many well-known worship songs such as “I Stand In Awe”, and “In The Presence”. This article first appeared on his blog and is used with permission.

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