Loved by God

One phrase really strikes me as I read it.

The LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you… (Deuteronomy 10:15)

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were far from perfect people. So too were the Israelites.

Time and again, they complained and rebelled against God. And yet God set his affection upon them.

Yes, God got angry with them.

Yes, he disciplined them.

But it never changed his love for his people. He continued to set his affection on them.

That gives me hope because I am so like the Israelites.

I sin. I fail.

If I were God, I’d have given up on me a long time ago.

Yet he continues to set his affection on me.

And he sets his affection on you too.

How are we to respond to this? God gives his answer in verses 12–13.

And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

In other words, in response to his love for us, we are to fear him, love him, serve him, and obey him.

Note that we don’t do these things to earn his love.

He already loves us.

He’s already set his affection on us.

He’s already chosen us.

Rather, we do these things in response to his love for us and all he has done for us.

It was true thousands of years ago.

It’s still true today.

Let us live every day in response to the love that God has shown us.

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)