Deuteronomy 7:1-8:20; Luke 7:36-8:3; Psalm 69:1-18; Proverbs 12:1
Do you really know how much God loves you? God is so passionately in love with you, that He looked over all others and selected you to be His very own. This is hard for many people to accept. God told Israel that He chose them simply because He loved them!!
God loves you for the same reason. God’s love is not something that you can earn. All you can do is accept it. It boggles the mind why God would love us but He does. Israel was the smallest of all nations and wasn’t held in high regard. But, they enjoyed the favor of God’s love. In fact, they had a covenant of unfailing love!
When God says He loves us, it is no small thing. When God loves us, it means He will act on our behalf. God told Israel that He would fight their battles. He said that He would open doors for them. God promises when they get in trouble, He will rescue them.
He even said that He will keep His covenant to 1000 generations. If a generation is about 22 years, He is saying that for 22,000 years he will watch out for you and yours. And we don’t earn any of this.
All God asks in return is that we love Him back. How do we love God? By doing what He says. One of the responses to this love is to protect it by living the way God prescribes. God says to Israel that they cannot compromise His standards and allow their lives to be polluted by the ways of the ungodly. You see, God wants people who are exclusively His. He wants this as a response not a requirement of His love. The next time you say, “I love God” check your heart to make certain that you are doing all you can to honor the love He shows you.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Deuteronomy 9:1-10:22; Luke 8:4-21; Psalm 69:19-36; Proverbs 12:2-3