So, when will he ‘go to the country’? Just as intriguingly will he still be in Downing Street after he has? The election ‘dust’ may have settled somewhat but there’s plenty of material to keep the political pundits pontificating, not least the latest defections and the encouraging figures on economic growth.

I find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe the Tories will form the next government though. They will fight hard of course, but they will have to do so with at least one hand tied behind their backs. The glaring divisions in the Parliamentary Party will ensure that. Professor John Curtice summed it up well when he said they are in deep electoral trouble. Having said that one researcher reminded me the other day that while the government’s prospects look dire you can never predict how the electorate will behave’.  Mr Sunak might even be right. We could be heading for a ‘hung parliament’.

Elections can certainly prove unpredictable, but I have been thinking of a very different election over the past few days, and this one has a guaranteed outcome. It is the ‘election’ we read of in both Old and New Testaments, and it’s God who does the electing!

The Old Testament applies the term "elect" to the Jews while the New Testament uses it when referring to the church both here on earth and in heaven. No one understood this better than the apostle Paul who said ‘Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us (that is He ‘elected’ us) in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes’.

Now the Biblical doctrine of ‘election’ has produced all kinds of positive and negative reactions over the years, but I find it encouraging because it means that I can face the future with confidence. It assures me that the church will never fail to grow, and I can engage in my ministry knowing that there will always be ‘fruit for my labour’. People will come to faith, like the couple I spent time with this morning. They certainly didn’t expect to become believers, but God has His plans.

Having said all this, it is worth remembering that one of Jesus’ closest friends advised his fellow Christians to do all they could to make sure they weren’t kidding themselves when they claimed to have been ‘elected’. But how can we do that?  Well to begin with we must obviously turn to Him in faith. We are free to dismiss Christianity as wrong, outdated, irrelevant or even a ‘mind virus’ as one famous atheist has suggested, but the New Testament tells us that if we want to be one of God’s ‘elect’ we need to acknowledge Jesus as Lord.

But that must mean more than empty words, The apostle Peter went on to tell his readers that they had to look at the way they were behaving too.  In other words, we can claim to be ‘elected’ as much as we like but if we are not becoming more and more like Jesus - self- controlled and kind for example - we are fooling no one, least of all God. For if God has chosen us, it will be perfectly obvious that we are becoming more and more like the One we claim to follow.