Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 6.

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.

What a verse.

God's speaking to his people in the Old Testament and basically describing how much he loves them

and he makes clear to them in this whole chapter that he does not love them because of some level of

merit in them that they've done to earn his love. He loves them, not because of merit in them,

but because of mercy in him. He says, it's not that you are a morally exemplary people. It's not like you went through tryouts among all

the peoples of the earth and I chose you because you were this or you were that. God says,

I simply chose you because I love you. I've chosen you to be a people for my treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on

the face of the earth. And this is a consistent theme we see throughout scripture. God, calling,

choosing people who are not worthy of being chosen or called because of merit in them, but solely because of mercy in God.

And this is a theme that transfers over right into the New Testament.

When Jesus says to his disciples, you do not choose me, I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit,

fruit that lasts. And Paul writes in Ephesians 1, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,

to be predestined for adoption as his children. What a thought. Just let this soak in, follower of Jesus.

You are loved by God, not because of merit in you, but solely because of mercy in him.

And I just want to encourage you to receive that in a fresh way today, that God himself,

the sovereign God creator, sustainer, ruler of the universe, chose to pour out his affection

on you, chose to bring you into his family, chose to send his son, Jesus,

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