Deuteronomy 7:7

The people of Israel were very special to God. But it is only natural to ask the question: “Why?” Why should God favour one particular nation over all the rest? In his sermon, Moses considers this question and concludes that the only possible explanation was love. The Israelites were not powerful and strong. Far from it, they formed a little nation that had spent much of its life in slavery. But God decided to show them his love. The verb that Moses used in Hebrew is really interesting, because it’s not a typical religious word. It literally means ‘to hang on to’ someone. God decided to hang on to the people of Israel through thick and thin. He had made a commitment to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and he wasn’t going to let them down.

Love is always a miraculous gift. You can’t buy love or force it to happen. That’s true of all our human relationships and supremely true of God’s relationship with us. God loves you and me and there is nothing we can do to change that fact. He is determined to hang on to us whatever happens. John 3:16 reads: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” If you want an explanation for God’s love, I can’t give it to you. He simply loves us and there is nothing we can do to make him love us more or less.

But the key question is: What are we going to do with God’s love? We can’t stop him loving us, but we have every right to reject him. For much of the time, the people of Israel defiantly went their own way. We often do exactly the same. But the best possible response is to recognise God’s love and live in the light of it, so we can share his love with the broken and confused world in which we live.

QUESTION
How do you respond to the fact that God loves you, and in what ways might it shape your actions today?

PRAYER
Lord God, thank you for your perfect love for me. Help me to share your love generously today in my words and actions. Amen

Released on 21 Sep 2023