The Chosen
Are You Choosable? Seven Steps to Being Used by God
There is a striking difference between being called and being choosable. Jesus made this distinction in Matthew 22:14, where He declared that many are called but few are chosen. The word translated "chosen" can equally be rendered "choosable" — and that subtle shift changes everything. A farmer walking through his orchard does not pick unripe fruit. He selects what is ready. Unlike an apple on a tree, which ripens through natural process alone, human beings have a choice in the matter. We can cooperate with God, surrender to His will, and make ourselves available — or we can remain unready, green on the vine, passed over not because we were unloved but because we were not yet ripe.
The question worth sitting with today is this: Are you choosable?
Isaiah 6 gives us a vivid and deeply personal portrait of what it looks like to move from a life of ordinary faith into one that God selects for extraordinary purpose. It is not a story reserved for prophets of ancient times. It is a map for anyone who wants to be genuinely used by God in this generation.
Something Has to Die First
Isaiah begins his vision with a striking detail: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." Uzziah was a good king — 52 years of faithful leadership, significant national progress, and genuine service to God's purposes. And yet something about his presence obscured Isaiah's view of God. When Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord.
There is something in every one of us that needs to die before we can see God clearly. It is not always something sinful. Sometimes it is a good thing — a dream, an ambition, a plan — that has quietly taken a position of priority in our hearts. When we pray and something other than God rushes to the front of our minds, that is a signal. Something has become a small idol, and it is blocking the view.
The death of that thing — whether through surrender, circumstance, or the slow work of obedience — is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a clearer vision.
Seeing God Before Seeing Your Ministry
The second step is vision, and the order matters enormously. Before Isaiah received a vision for his ministry, he received a vision of God — high and lifted up, His glory filling the temple. This sequence is not incidental. It is instructional.
There is a temptation in ministry and in Christian life broadly to pursue what we want to do for God before we have genuinely encountered who God is. Programs, platforms, and plans can all exist without the living presence of God behind them. But when a person has truly seen God — not necessarily with physical eyes, but with the inner faculties of a spirit made alive through new birth — everything that follows is anchored in something real. We carry what we have encountered. And what we carry is what we transmit to others.
The Necessity of Encounter
The seraphim surrounding the throne in Isaiah 6 were not decorative. They were actively crying out, "Holy, holy, holy." Their presence signals that Isaiah had entered a genuinely supernatural moment — the kind of encounter that marks a life permanently.
Every person who has been significantly used by God can point to moments like this. Not manufactured experiences, but real ones — times in prayer, in waiting, in stillness, where the presence of God became undeniably tangible. These encounters do not happen apart from a life of prayer. Prayer is the atmosphere in which encounter becomes possible. Just as the body cannot survive without breath, the spirit cannot thrive without the ongoing rhythm of communion with God.
Worship as Calling, Not Preference
Worship is not a warm-up act. It is a calling. Peter describes believers as a royal priesthood, living stones built into a spiritual temple, called to offer up spiritual sacrifices — and that language encompasses every moment of genuine praise and worship offered to God, public or private.
When a believer stands in a gathering and sings to God with a full heart, they are not merely participating in a service. They are functioning as a priest. They are contributing to an atmosphere in which the presence of God is drawn down and people's lives are changed. That is ministry. It happens before the sermon begins.
Repentance as a Gift
Isaiah's response to seeing God was immediate and visceral: "Woe is me, I am undone." The closer we draw to God, the more aware we become of our own shortcomings. This is not cause for despair — it is cause for repentance, which is itself a gift.
Repentance is not only for the moment of salvation. It is a posture, a spiritual habit, a willingness to bring things into the light and say, "Lord, I am sorry." It clears the ground. It removes the legal footholds that keep us stuck. And it opens the door from condemnation into the living room of faith, where there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Nobody lives in a doorway. Repentance is the passage, not the destination.
Cleansed and Transformed
The angel who touched Isaiah's lips with a burning coal was not being cruel. The fire was purifying. Transformation is rarely painless. The Holy Spirit is always at work conforming us to the image of Christ — and the more we yield to that process, the more usable we become. The more choosable.
Available
Finally, Isaiah overheard a conversation. God was not speaking directly to him. He was simply asking, "Who shall I send, and who will go for us?" And Isaiah leaned in and said, "Here am I. Send me."
God is looking for availability far more than ability. The question He is asking has not changed. And the answer that changes everything is still the same: Here am I. Send me.
That answer, offered with a surrendered heart, is where the greatest adventure of a human life begins.
This blog article has been taken from a C3 Church Global podcast episode. Watch the podcast HERE.
There is a striking difference between being called and being choosable. Jesus made this distinction in Matthew 22:14, where He declared that many are called but few are chosen. The word translated "chosen" can equally be rendered "choosable" — and that subtle shift changes everything. A farmer walking through his orchard does not pick unripe fruit. He selects what is ready. Unlike an apple on a tree, which ripens through natural process alone, human beings have a choice in the matter. We can cooperate with God, surrender to His will, and make ourselves available — or we can remain unready, green on the vine, passed over not because we were unloved but because we were not yet ripe.
The question worth sitting with today is this: Are you choosable?
Isaiah 6 gives us a vivid and deeply personal portrait of what it looks like to move from a life of ordinary faith into one that God selects for extraordinary purpose. It is not a story reserved for prophets of ancient times. It is a map for anyone who wants to be genuinely used by God in this generation.
Something Has to Die First
Isaiah begins his vision with a striking detail: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." Uzziah was a good king — 52 years of faithful leadership, significant national progress, and genuine service to God's purposes. And yet something about his presence obscured Isaiah's view of God. When Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord.
There is something in every one of us that needs to die before we can see God clearly. It is not always something sinful. Sometimes it is a good thing — a dream, an ambition, a plan — that has quietly taken a position of priority in our hearts. When we pray and something other than God rushes to the front of our minds, that is a signal. Something has become a small idol, and it is blocking the view.
The death of that thing — whether through surrender, circumstance, or the slow work of obedience — is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a clearer vision.
Seeing God Before Seeing Your Ministry
The second step is vision, and the order matters enormously. Before Isaiah received a vision for his ministry, he received a vision of God — high and lifted up, His glory filling the temple. This sequence is not incidental. It is instructional.
There is a temptation in ministry and in Christian life broadly to pursue what we want to do for God before we have genuinely encountered who God is. Programs, platforms, and plans can all exist without the living presence of God behind them. But when a person has truly seen God — not necessarily with physical eyes, but with the inner faculties of a spirit made alive through new birth — everything that follows is anchored in something real. We carry what we have encountered. And what we carry is what we transmit to others.
The Necessity of Encounter
The seraphim surrounding the throne in Isaiah 6 were not decorative. They were actively crying out, "Holy, holy, holy." Their presence signals that Isaiah had entered a genuinely supernatural moment — the kind of encounter that marks a life permanently.
Every person who has been significantly used by God can point to moments like this. Not manufactured experiences, but real ones — times in prayer, in waiting, in stillness, where the presence of God became undeniably tangible. These encounters do not happen apart from a life of prayer. Prayer is the atmosphere in which encounter becomes possible. Just as the body cannot survive without breath, the spirit cannot thrive without the ongoing rhythm of communion with God.
Worship as Calling, Not Preference
Worship is not a warm-up act. It is a calling. Peter describes believers as a royal priesthood, living stones built into a spiritual temple, called to offer up spiritual sacrifices — and that language encompasses every moment of genuine praise and worship offered to God, public or private.
When a believer stands in a gathering and sings to God with a full heart, they are not merely participating in a service. They are functioning as a priest. They are contributing to an atmosphere in which the presence of God is drawn down and people's lives are changed. That is ministry. It happens before the sermon begins.
Repentance as a Gift
Isaiah's response to seeing God was immediate and visceral: "Woe is me, I am undone." The closer we draw to God, the more aware we become of our own shortcomings. This is not cause for despair — it is cause for repentance, which is itself a gift.
Repentance is not only for the moment of salvation. It is a posture, a spiritual habit, a willingness to bring things into the light and say, "Lord, I am sorry." It clears the ground. It removes the legal footholds that keep us stuck. And it opens the door from condemnation into the living room of faith, where there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Nobody lives in a doorway. Repentance is the passage, not the destination.
Cleansed and Transformed
The angel who touched Isaiah's lips with a burning coal was not being cruel. The fire was purifying. Transformation is rarely painless. The Holy Spirit is always at work conforming us to the image of Christ — and the more we yield to that process, the more usable we become. The more choosable.
Available
Finally, Isaiah overheard a conversation. God was not speaking directly to him. He was simply asking, "Who shall I send, and who will go for us?" And Isaiah leaned in and said, "Here am I. Send me."
God is looking for availability far more than ability. The question He is asking has not changed. And the answer that changes everything is still the same: Here am I. Send me.
That answer, offered with a surrendered heart, is where the greatest adventure of a human life begins.
This blog article has been taken from a C3 Church Global podcast episode. Watch the podcast HERE.
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