Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries
"Why?"
July 21, 2020
(Moses said) "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that's why the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations ...."
Why does God love me? That's a question pretty much everybody has to deal with at some point. Does He love me because I'm so wonderful? Because I'm so gifted or beautiful or intelligent? Does He love me because I do so many good deeds? And if He loves me for any of these reasons ... does that mean I could lose His love? Because I might not always be beautiful or intelligent or respectable or moral. Would God still love me then?
In our Bible reading for today, it's clear that the Israelites were thinking about it. In fact, Moses feels the need to deal with this question directly. He asks them, "Did God love you and choose you to be His people because you are the biggest, strongest nation on earth? No! In fact, you were the tiniest, weakest nation."
Then Moses explains the real reason why God loved and chose the people of Israel. Moses says, "It is because the Lord loves you." Basically, Moses is saying, "God loves you because God loves you. He loves you because that's His nature."
The answer is the same for all of us who believe in Jesus and have become God's children. God loves us because He loves us. That is His nature—to be "the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him." God's love for us is not based on anything we have done. It is based in the fact that He Himself is love, and that He shows this love through Jesus Christ, His Son. As Paul says, "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Nothing we could do could earn that love, and that means that there's no danger of losing it. We are safe in God's love. We are loved, truly and forever—because that's the way God is. And that love frees us to love Him back.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, thank You for loving me. Plant Your love in my heart. Amen.
Reflection Questions:
1. What are human reasons for loving people?This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo. Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin! Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).
2. Have you ever worried about being unlovable?
3. How have you seen God's free love for you in your life?
What are human reasons for loving people?
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