“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”
Deuteronomy 7:6 (NIV)
Do we chose God, or does God chose us?
The answer to this question has divided Protestants for centuries and will divide us long into the future. I am not trying to solve anything in this little article, nor am I trying to divide us further.
I am however trying to gain some light from other Scripture into why Amos 3:2 lists God choosing Israel as a reason for God to punish them.
In Deuteronomy 7 we find some clarification as to what chosen by God means. He chooses whom He loves, for according to vs 7 He sets His affection on you through His act of choosing, and vs 8 teaches it was because the LORD loved you, that He redeemed you, and vs 9 teaches that the LORD keeps His covenant of love. And the LORD expects love from those He chooses.
This choosing of 1 family in the earth over all the other families, to receive blessings from God that others won’t get - seems out of sync with our modern Canadian sense of fairness - and that perhaps explains some of our resistance to the plain meaning of these and other Scriptures that teach God chooses His people.
Do we ever stop to consider that with the great privilege of being chosen by God, by being set apart from all the people of the earth, comes the great responsibility of following his decrees and laws, and changing our behaviour to reflect the character of the great God who chose us.
To whom much has been given – much is expected.
We have been given the great great love of the LORD Almighty, He expects more from us than our unsaved neighbour, unsaved family member, or unsaved work mate.
The wonderful news is that His great love provides us with what we need to reflect our LORD’s wonderful character - including punishment.
God’s love and God’s choice are joined together.
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