Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 7 and 8.

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 the Lord has brought you out with a mighty

hand and redeems you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh King of Egypt.

I love those two verses. Like, did you hear what God just said to his people?

So this is not because you were this great mighty large group of people that the Lord set his

love on you. God's saying that I didn't love you because you were this great mighty large group

of people, for you were the fewest of all peoples. So why did the Lord choose? That's the language

here. He chose you even though you were the fewest of all peoples. Why? And the answer is it is

because the Lord loves you. So the Lord set his love on the people of Israel. Why? Because the

Lord loved the people of Israel. In other words, it wasn't because of any merit in them at all.

It wasn't because of them at all. It was because of him. It was because of the Lord that he set his

love upon them. This love initiated, originated in God and there was no reason for it in Israel.

You take that truth and you think about your life. I think about my life.

Like, why has God loved me like he has? Like, I am a sinner before God. I have rebelled against God.

I was born in sin running from God, rebelling against God. Why did he love me? It wasn't because of

any merit in me, but solely because of love and mercy in him. His love is the only explanation

for why I am a follower of Jesus because he chose and his grace and his mercy to pour out his

love onto me. And the same is true for you and for all who know God. The reality is you know God.

You know his love because of his love. Period. Not because of you. This is basic Christianity.

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