Chosen: Before the World Had a Vote (Part 1)

What if the deepest longing of your heart—to be chosen, wanted, and secure—was never meant to be fulfilled by the world?

In this episode of Lioness Women: Rooted in Christ, Jen Porter invites you into a powerful reframe of identity, belonging, and worth. Through personal story and biblical truth, she explores how our desire to be chosen shows up in friendships, romance, careers, and leadership—and how devastating it can feel when the world withdraws its approval.

But here’s the anchor truth: God chose you before the world had a vote.

Rooted in Ephesians 1, this episode contrasts the fragile, performance-based choosing of the world with the eternal, unchanging choosing of God. You’ll be reminded that your identity was never meant to rest on being selected, approved, or kept by others—but on being adopted, claimed, and held by God Himself.

This conversation is for every woman who has ever been overlooked, rejected, unchosen, or walked away from—and for every woman ready to live from the security of knowing she is fully chosen, forever.

Come listen, breathe deep, and let your soul remember where you truly belong.

Connect @ https://www.jenportercoach.com/

Share with the women and girls in your life who need to be reminded of who they are!

Creators and Guests

Host

Jen Porter

Jen Porter is a faith-centered coach and podcast host who empowers women to live boldly from their identity in Christ, rooted in truth, courage, and holy confidence.

What is Lioness Women: Rooted in Christ?

Welcome to Lioness Women, a space for faith-fueled women to connect with their purpose and amplify their voices. These Lioness Conversations highlight purpose-driven women who share how their faith in Christ shapes their leadership, courage, and calling. 🦁

Hosted by Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach, this podcast shines a light on women who are leading with wisdom, strength, and grace — in boardrooms, businesses, ministries, and movements around the world.

Through raw, inspiring conversations, we explore how women of faith are building legacies, overcoming fear, and transforming their industries with bold vision and unshakable belief. If you’re ready to rise higher, lead with purpose, and stay rooted in Christ — this is your community.

Faith-Based Leadership | Christian Women | Women of Faith | Christian Podcast for Women | Kingdom Leadership | Spiritual Growth | Eternal Impact

Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Lioness Women Rooted in Christ. We are focusing on our identity in Christ. This series has been really special. We focused on being loved first and then we moved to being blessed. And this week we're gonna talk about what it means to be chosen.

So part of our identity in Christ is that we are chosen. We are loved, we are blessed, we are chosen. Those things are not because of us, but because of who God is. It just is. It's because of His immense, deep, profound, eternal love for us that these things are true. Now I wanna go back to why I'm doing this series. And it is because we must know

who we are. If we do not understand our worth, our value, who we are, we will be kind of at the whim of what the world says. And the world is going to tell us a lot of things. And sadly, a lot of those things are just absolute lies. I think about myself, I think about my friends, the women in my life, the girls in my life, the clients in my life. And it is so clear to me

how many lies have been spoken over us in the course of our lifetime. And the problem is we live into those lies. We begin to believe those lies, especially if we're very impressionable. Let's say we're very young when we hear those things. What else are we to believe other than that must be true? It must be true that I'm not intelligent, that I'm not talented, that I don't have what it takes, that I'm not worth anything, that... ⁓

You know, no one will love me. There are all these things that have been spoken. It may be around money. I'm not good with money. There are all these things that we believe about ourselves that are absolutely not true. And while we might be able to find evidence for some of those things being true, that's our brain trying to make sense of what we're being told. So we're going to look for those things where it's like, well, I did make that mistake. You know, I didn't do that well. Well,

No, we're not perfect, but we are on a journey of becoming. And if we are in Christ, He is actually transforming us into who He designed us to be for His pleasure, for the sake of the world, for His glory, and for our good. So I want to talk about what it means to be chosen. How many of us

I especially as girls, you we want to be chosen, right? We want to be chosen for the team, for the play. There's some sort of competition and we want to be chosen and selected. We want to make the cut. And it's all based on performance, right? We live in such a performance culture. I can remember being on sports teams and you you try out.

and you hope that you make the cut and that you can be part of this team. And what does it mean to be part of that team? Well, it actually changes a lot because it changes how we spend our time. It changes how we develop as an athlete. It changes our social structures. So it becomes a part of our identity. It becomes who we know ourselves to be, who we hang out with, how we are influenced by those people. It's our social life.

And if we're not selected for that team, then all of those other people are going on without us. You we're not part of the locker room conversations. We're not on the buses going to and from games and practices together. We don't wear the jersey if we're not selected. We don't wear the uniform. And so it actually is, there's seemingly a lot at stake if we aren't chosen for the sports team.

Now think about dating. Okay, how much did we when we were little girls want to be chosen by a boy? In my case, you know, I just I wanted to be liked. I wanted to have, you know, the boyfriend like me and there is so much that we put into our being accepted by other people and we just

We put so much of ourselves into relationships and what if we're the ones that aren't chosen by the boy that we like? What if we aren't pursued by someone in a romantic way? It actually really hurts us at a deep level because really, really deep down we wanna be chosen. We want to know that we're special and we're looking for someone to tell us that. And then going into the job market.

and having to interview for jobs, you're always competing against other people. And we want, you know, if it's a job that we want, we want to be selected for that. There's a lot at stake for that. We want to be, you we want to have the income. We want to have the benefits. We want to have the title. We want to be able to do good work in the world. And so we want to be selected. And how does it feel when we don't get it?

My goodness, it's like a dagger, isn't it? It just hurts so much when we are not selected and chosen. And then think about marriage, right? We think we found the one who's gonna love us forever and the vows indicate it will be till death do we part. And yet, like in my case, my first marriage,

My husband left. He unchose me and it was devastating. Devastating to my heart, to my life, to my psyche, to my identity. I was no longer a wife. And what did that mean? I was no longer in this partnership with the person that I thought would be forever. And so those...

Wow, being chosen in this world is quite fickle, isn't it? Because all those things can change. We can get kicked off the team. The team may ⁓ dissolve, know. Anything can happen. We could, you know, we could break up in our relationships. We could...

be divorced and you we could not be selected for all these things. All of those things can change. They are circumstantial and yet they're essential for life. You know we want to live full lives and so we want to lean into these things but we can't place our identity in them because it's not safe. It's not strong enough to withstand.

all the forces that can come in our world. But there is one that is strong enough to hold us and that is the love of God. God actually chose us. It actually says it in the Bible. So I'm going to reference Ephesians. This is Ephesians 1, 4, and 5. It says, for He chose us, this is God talking, for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless

in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His children through Jesus Christ. Again, this is Ephesians 1, 4 through 5.

for he chose us in him, in himself, before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. What that means is it's not perfect. It doesn't mean that we will be perfect. It means that Christ sees us as holy and blameless because it's through his eyes and it's through the filter of the cross and what was done on the cross. It is only because of his blood that he's able to see us as holy and blameless and we

just are. That's gift that he gives us. He sees us as holy and blameless. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his children through Jesus Christ. God has chosen us. That longing that we have deep inside our hearts, in our soul, that longing is designed by God.

is put inside of us to be fulfilled by God himself. Not to be fulfilled by someone, a romantic partner, even a parent. I mean, it's not designed for anything or anyone in this world to fill. That longing is to be filled up by Christ himself. So he chose us. We didn't do anything to deserve it.

We are fully loved, completely chosen, and He will not un-choose us. He says He will not forsake us. He will not leave us. He will not abandon us. He will not give up on us. The world is so conditional. If you do this for me, I will do this for you. It's contractual. It's circumstantial. It's temporary.

That's not the way it works in the kingdom of God. In the kingdom of God, it is eternal. God never changes. What he says is true. We can put all of our hope in it. We can put all of our trust in it. He is fully 100 % faithful. And so when we're looking around for acceptance and belonging and where do we fit in and who am I,

We can look to the world to answer those questions for us, but we will absolutely be disappointed. And worse, we might be traumatized because we might find ourselves in relationships or situations that are just not true and they are destructive. it may, we may lose ourselves if we put...

our hope in something that is not lasting and just so shallow. So I just want you to grab hold of this. know, I'm when have you had a moment where like think back on your life. When have you really really wanted something and not been selected for it? You weren't chosen. Somebody else got it.

It's probably really painful to remember that. It is for me to think back on those moments where I put my hope in something, I wanted it so bad, I thought it'd be so good for me or he would be so good for me and it just didn't happen and how painful that is. And then how does it feel to know that God chose you before the creation of the world? He chose you.

You are on purpose, for a purpose. He loved you into being. He formed you in your mother's womb. He knew you before the creation of the world. Do you sense the belonging of that? To be adopted into the kingdom of God by him? To be his children? To be his child? To be loved?

to be cherished, to be treasured, to be known. That kind of belonging is deep and it is so profound. It's the kind of belonging that can hold us even when the world ⁓ does wrong. I try to think of a great word, abandons us, disappoints us, lets us down.

walks away. You know when the world leaves us, betrays us, we can still stand strong in who we are and our true character and identity because of God. And that never changes. I mean how would you live differently today? I'm just curious. How would you live differently today if you knew you were chosen? Not by the guy.

competition not by the team not by the company but by God himself the the creator of the universe the one who knows you intimately better than anybody in the world he chose you and he'll never un-choose you how would you live differently today if you knew you were chosen I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts

One is like an anchor, right? And I'm going to leave you with an anchor statement. You are chosen by God on purpose not because you were qualified, but because He is faithful. And now a blessing. May you walk forward this week, rooted in the unshakable truth that you are chosen, held, and sent by God for such a time as this. ⁓

I'll see you in the next episode. Live in your chosenness today.