"Chosen For Praise"

“So the people of God were sovereignly chosen by Him for glory – to show forth His ‘praises.’ But praises for what? This glorying is not by a complacent religious elite congratulating God for having the wisdom to choose such decent people. Instead, it is praise form those who know they were delivered from ‘darkness’ – who once were no people, but now are sensitively aware they are the people of God solely by the power of His grace. In plain talk, this glorying in God is by those who were the bad and the ugly, the enemies and the aliens who are filled with praise because God’s mercy has changed all this. They are not inherently extraordinary, but are worse than ordinary. They are ‘darkness.’ Now, however, they have a new motivational compulsion: thankfulness for the difference between what they once were and did and what they now are and do by virtue of God’s transforming life working in their souls. They shine with a radiance of gratitude based on God’s sovereign call of grace.”

(C. John Miller, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church, p. 71)