God Has No Substitutes

God had a destiny for Joseph, and the boy believed in it.

Do you believe in God's destiny for you?

I'm entering my third decade as a pastor. Thirty years is plenty of time to hear Joseph stories. I've met many Egypt-bound people. Down, down, down. I've learned the question to ask. If you and I were having this talk over coffee, this is the point where I would lean across the table and say, "What do you still have that you cannot lose?" The difficulties have taken much away. I get that. But there is one gift your troubles cannot touch: your destiny. Can we talk about it?

You are God's child. He saw you, picked you, and placed you. "You did not choose me; I chose you" (John 15:16 NCV). Before you are a butcher, baker, or cabinet-maker, male or female, Asian or black, you are God's child. Replacement or fill-in? Hardly. You are his first choice.

Such isn't always the case in life. Once, just minutes before I officiated a wedding, the groom leaned over to me and said, "You weren't my first choice."

"I wasn't?"
"No, the preacher I wanted couldn't make it."
"Oh."
"But thanks for filling in."
"Sure. Anytime." I considered signing the marriage license "Substitute."

You'll never hear such words from God. He chose you. The choice wasn't obligatory, required, compulsory, forced, or compelled. He selected you because he wanted to. You are his open, willful, voluntary choice. He walked onto the auction block where you stood, and he proclaimed, "This child is mine." And he bought you "with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:19). You are God's child.

You are his child forever.