CHOSEN

Chosen

Effect

The magician hands a deck of alphabet cards to a spectator who freely shuffles and cuts the deck. The magician places an envelope on top of the deck, and when the envelope is opened, the prediction matches the card to which the spectator cut.

Presentation
Sometimes we feel like we aren't very important to anybody. But from reading the Bible we learn that each one of us is very important to God. I'm going to use these alphabet cards to illustrate this. As you can see, we have all the different letters here in the deck. Now I'd like you to shuffle the deck as many times as you like, and then place the deck here on the table. Now cut the deck by taking about half the cards off and set them to the side.

Before we began, I selected a letter of the alphabet and wrote it on the paper sealed in this evnelope. (Set the envelope on the bottom portion of the deck.) Please open the envelope and read what the paper says. (The spectator opens the envelope and reads "I have chosen 'U'."). Now turn over the top card and see what card you cut to. (The spectator turns over the card to reveal the letter 'U'.)

In John 15:16 Jesus says to His followers "I have chosen YOU." And in Ephesians 1:4 we read that God has chosen us before the foundation of the world.
God loves each one of you so much that He selected you for a special place in His kingdom. As we follow Him we can find the abundant life that He came to bring to each of us.

The Secret
Remove the "U" card from the deck beforehand and have it hidden under the envelope. If you place them so they extend a little past the edge of the table you can easily pick up the card and envelope together. Then when you put the envelope on top of the cards, you also put the "U" card at the top of the deck!