Is God Playing Favorites?

A friend told me that you don't choose to follow God, God chooses you to be a follower. He says the song "I have Decided to Follow Jesus" particularly irks him because the song makes it look like it's your choice, not God's. I'm saying he's right about God choosing us first, but wrong to think there is anyone God does not choose.

First, the party line argument. God chooses everybody. He chose people who had a Pauline conversion experience and people who felt their heart strangely warmed. He chooses the people who claim to know him and he chooses those who seem to work against him. God even chooses the people who we good Christians think couldn't possibly know him. And God is waiting for us to get the word out to everybody else. God got first choice, and he chose all of us.

It doesn't matter whether you accept that argument or not. Blind adherence to dogma is a way to avoid thinking. Dogma simply means that someone has already thought through the ramifications of a particular position. The risk in dogma is that you may be encountering a situation that doesn't apply.

As for choosing to follow God, evangelism suffers when you ignore any person because you think God is ignoring him or her. Even the die-hard predestination (preordination) people admit that it is foolishness to second guess God - you can't pretend to know who God has elected for his grace. You've got to evangelize everyone.

A lot of us read "many are called" to mean that all are called; and "few are chosen" to mean that only some people will ultimately accept God's grace. If people are led to believe that God isn't choosing them, their eventual acceptance of God's grace is unlikely. That's it. Let's not mess them up by pretending they don't matter to God.

How about the apostle Paul? Was he so important to God that God was willing to go around the normal evangelism channels and directly recruit Paul? I'm sure that Paul didn't intend this, but he makes me feel like a second class Christian. Surely if God loved me as much as Paul, wouldn't he have blinded me on the road to Branson?

Some think their conversion experience to be more valid than mine. They want to put into practice the elitism that Paul hinted at. Don't go there, people. Paul was just a man; an extremely hard working, dedicated and influential man, but only a man. God invites us into his fellowship in different ways; each way is an affirmation and not a rejection. Let's think through our beliefs and try to find the ones that harmonize with God's lead.