I frequently meet Christians who react to a Born-Again Jew by exclaiming, “How awesome and special it must be “, they say “I wish I were one of the Chosen people!”  While I appreciate their love of the Jewish people, I always point out that if you know Jesus, the Bible says you are one of God’s chosen people.

Then I might add, just remember that being chosen has its burdens as well as its blessings.

If you’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof, you will remember Tevye the dairy man.  Tevye dryly suggested that maybe “for once, just for once God, could you choose someone else”. From Tevye’s perspective, being the chosen people had a high price ….persecutions, wanderings and broken dreams….while the benefits of being chosen remained illusive.

Others have struggled with the concept of “chosen people”. Some have gone so far as to ask, “What makes the Jews think they are so special, that God would choose them over all other people?”

Such questions thinly disguise the resentment that has often boiled up into vehement anti-Semitism.  That resentment provoked a poet to write, “How odd of God to choose the Jews, but not so odd as those who choose the Jewish God and hate the Jews.”

The Jewish people are not the only chosen ones. The Hebrew word for chosen, bachar reflects the more familiar New Testament concept of election. The Church of Jesus Christ is the elect of God (2 Timothy 2:10). If you have received Him as you Messiah and Savior, that means that God chose you!

God keeps His promises to both of His “Chosen Peoples”, Israel and the Church…for His names sake.  Both of us also experience the same resentment the world feels toward God’s chosen people.  All you have to do is tell the average person that Jesus Christ is the only way to have a relationship with God. People will resent you for being narrow-minded, just as they resent my Jewish people for being exclusive.

Israel and the Church both represent the blessing of God’s choosing.  Both demonstrate the truth of God’s love and faithfulness, His mercy and His grace.

Both Israel and the Church may experience deep and abiding failure. Both may be resented, hated even persecuted by the world. Yet both are people of great destiny with a hope filled future.

That future is secure ONLY for those who name the name of Christ, not because of the strength or the goodness of those who were chosen, but because of the faithful, loving and all-powerful God who chooses, so that He Himself might receive the glory. God chooses those who will believe in Him!

There is no Jew, no Gentile at the foot of HIS Cross. Only Born Again Jews and

Born Again Christians. Together we share a new family, formed to Worship and Praise only ONE KING…the Coming King of men and angels. No longer the lamb who was slain; now the King of Kings, the LION of the TRIBE of Judah. KING JESUS, THE KING OF ETERNITY.