At DesiringGod.org, we believe in the sovereignty of God, and we believe it because we see it

in Scripture.

And not only do we believe in God's sovereignty over all things, but we celebrate it.

And we also feel the important questions about what all this means for our own lives today.

Today's question is short and simple, but it's pretty profound, and it comes from a

podcast listener named Zina who writes this, Pastor John, did God elect me because he loves

me?

Or does he love me because he elected me?

How would you answer Zina?

Like so many questions, this one almost answers itself as soon as we define our terms, or

as soon as we, in this case, clarify what these two questions mean.

In fact, the reason I think this question is worthy of answering is precisely to clarify

the terms, because if the terms are given certain meanings, very wrong teachings can emerge.

For example, someone might ask the question, did God elect me, that is, choose me for

himself because he loves me, assuming that God saw something lovable in me, and then

was inclined to me on that basis, and then because of that inclination towards me and

my peculiar value that he recognizes, he chose me as part of his family.

Of that would be a dreadfully wrong picture.

God is surveying humanity and all the people out there to see who's worthy of his adoption,

people who have the necessary qualifications to be chosen out of a fallen and condemned

humanity.

That's not the picture of the New Testament, as soon as we clarify that, the answer starts

...