lotto!

It is fantasy football season and I am kind of freaking out.  I'm in four leagues this year and they're all very serious.  Gone are the days of checking on my team from time to time and allowing the computer to draft for me.  No, now I have all the research in front of me and I'm checking injury reports and mock drafts and all the websites for the latest news so that when I draft my team I pick the best guys.  Its tough work!  Certainly not for the faint of heart.  There are some MAJOR bragging rights on the line!  You never know how the people you choose will perform, so you have to know your stuff in order to pick reliable, consistent players.  I have to make sure I pick the right guys lest my team is terrible and I spend 16 weeks of football bottom-dwelling and hearing about it from my opposition.

2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 says: But we ought always to thank God for you because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
It seems to me that God didn't do His homework.  If He was to have read the fantasy report on you and me, He would have seen that we are consistently rude, spiteful, lustful, prideful, unreliable, and downright unpleasant.  There's no way that He would choose me.  I don't bring anything to the table except my filthy rags and inadequacy.    And yet, chose me He did!  He took my dirty rags upon Himself and clothed me in the splendid robe of His glorious righteousness.  He took my rudeness, spite, lust, pride, flightiness, and every other defiancy and He nailed them all to the cross.  He CHOSE me.  It wasn't because He didn't know me, or because He was unaware of my weakness.  Rather it was because He DOES know me and He is FULLY aware of my weakness that He was nailed to a tree and chose me to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.  He knew I was too weak to do it on my own, so He chose to suffer and die that I might live.  Wow.  Thank you Lord!