The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)
In Deuteronomy 7 we see that God did not choose Israel based on their goodness. They did nothing to cause Him to pick them over any other nation. God chose Israel because of a covenant He made with Abraham.
We must always be wary of the devils lies that will try and make us think God owes us anything. This can creep into our lives without our realizing it. Think about the following statements:
“I don’t understand why God would send a good person to hell.”
I can’t accept the fact that God heals everyone because so and so was a strong Christian and God did not heal them.”
Can you see the error in these statements? So and so was a good person implies that God owed them a healing. Everything we receive from God is based on faith and not our good works.
Many of these thought process come from a works mentality birthed out of religious traditions. These often come from a works mentality grounded in the Old Covenant.
We need to understand that the Old Testament Law was not given to free mankind from sin. Its sole purpose instead is to amplify our sin and show us the need for a Savior. The Old Testament paints a picture of how hideous our sin nature is which amplifies our need of a savior.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
(Galatians 3:24)
Paul tells us that the Old Testament was given to lead us to Christ. It was not meant to guide us in our daily life. There are lessons to be learned from the Old Testament. We must be wary of the temptation to allow ourselves to fall into bondage from religious traditions based in it.
The Law was given to lead us to Christ. We must come to an end of ourselves and this is the purpose for the Old Testament. It shows us our utter lack of ability to ever be good enough to earn the love of God.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
God loved us so much that He sent Jesus as the sacrifice for our sin. We could never do anything to earn this love. In the Old Testament we see the hopeless situation each one of us was born into as a result of our sin nature.
Our heavenly Father’s love is not based on our works, faithfulness in church attendance, or good works. He loved us before we were born or committed our first sin. His love is the same for the worst sinner as the best Christian!
God showed mercy to mankind when our sin nature deserved nothing less than judgment. His holiness could not allow us into His presence in our fallen condition.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
(Romans 3:23)
Every person who has ever lived has sinned and come short of the standard set in the Old Testament. God sent Jesus to stand in our place and through His death, burial, and resurrection He purchased something from God that we could never earn.
When we talk about coming to an of ourselves we are saying that each one of us must acknowledge our hopeless condition outside of Jesus. It is because of Him that we are able to stand without shame in God’s presence today!
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