Chosen, Blessed, or Purposed?
Deuteronomy 7 reminds
us of a very important fact. God chose
the Hebrew people out of love, not because they deserved it. God chose the Hebrew people because He is
faithful to His promises, not because this generation had done anything to
deserve His attention. God is the God of
the Hebrew people because He loved them, not the other way around.
Now, I’m not making
the argument that the Hebrew people didn’t love God. Certainly the Old Testament and the New Testament
are filled with stories of people who loved God. Of that there can be no doubt. But the truth is that God loved the Hebrew
people first, and the Hebrew people loved God in response to His initial love.
For this reason, I
prefer to refer to the Hebrew people as the “purposed ones” rather than the “chosen
ones.” The description “chosen ones”
makes it sound like they are better and worthy of the choosing. That just simply isn’t true. Rather, they are purposed because of the
covenant God made with Abraham. God
tells Abraham that because of faith He will make Abraham’s offspring more
numerous than can be counted. But the
people are purposed as being models of that faith in the world. They are “chosen” for a purpose, not because
they deserve it.
It is interesting
that we as Christians talk about salvation in the same terms. There is nothing that we can do on our own to
bring about our salvation. Yes, we can
receive the gift of salvation. We
respond to the gift of salvation rather than earn it ourselves. Sanctification is accomplished as a response
to the full work of salvation which Jesus Christ has already quite sufficiently
accomplished without any help from us.
God loved us first, He sent His Son, and He provided the full way to
salvation. We love God in response to
Him first loving us. We receive
salvation in response to Him first providing it to us. In this aspect, God is quite consistent. God initiates, we as humans respond.
For the record, we as
Christians are also purposed. We’re
purposed with the exact same purpose, too!
We are purposed to be models of relationship with the Father. We’re purposed to invite other people to
learn how to be in relationship with the Father as well.
From Purpose to Hate
Next, I am going to
pass along a piece of information that I just now learned. The Hebrew word for “hate” used in
Deuteronomy 7:10 is a word that can also mean “turn against” or even
“decisively reject.” I’ve never thought
about hate in that way, but it makes a lot of sense. If I hate mushrooms – which I do – I reject
them as a source of nutrition for my body.
If I hate politics – again, which I do – I am likely to turn away from
those who speak about politics with regularity.
I think it is neat to understand the idea of hate not just as an
emotional response but also with respect to a logical process of rejection. For me, that is a new concept that I look
forward to chewing on and adding to my repertoire of how I talk about “hate.”
Therefore, when Moses
tells the Hebrew people that God will not be slack with those who hate Him,
Moses is warning them about rejection.
Don’t reject God! Don’t close the
door on God. Don’t reject God’s
influence in your life!
Destruction of the Nations
The final concept
that I’d like to roll around this blog is regarding the utter destruction of
the nations and their implements of worship.
These sections are all about corruption.
And these are quite significant perspectives, too.
A few days ago I got
the chance to listen to a speech spoken by the general secretary of the
NALC. Within that speech, I heard the
following analogy:
If you are flying 5
miles and your compass is off by a few degrees, you’ll still hit the mark close
enough to be okay. But who flies for 5
miles? If you fly 500 miles and your compass
is off by even a few degrees, you’ll probably miss the city to which you are
flying. If you are flying 5,000 miles
and your compass is off by a few degrees, you’ll probably miss the state to
which you are flying.
There is so much
truth in that analogy. When we let small
nuances of culture trickle into our life, we may not notice a significant
change. But it will affect us. And after years of being under that
influence, it will affect us greatly.
After generations of that influence we will be completely different
people. That is the tendency that Moses
is writing against. That is the tendency
that God is advocating against. We need
to be diligent about discerning the culture that we let into our lives.
Of course, we should
not wall out the world, either. We
should not be afraid to interact with the world. But we must be careful what we allow of the world
to affect us and come into our homes, churches, and relationships. It is trite and I’ve said it before, but this
is why we must be diligent to be in the world and not of it. I’ve seen bad things happen all too often
when we let a little of the world in and then not monitor the effects.
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