#DailyDevotion Christians You Are A People Holy To The Lord
Oct. 8th
Read Deut 7:1–19
Deu 7:6-10 (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. (7) 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, (8) 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 redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (9) Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, (10) and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.
Jesus warns his people not intermingle with the nations he is sending them to destroy. Don’t make covenants, contracts with them and certainly don’t marry them. Why? Because they will lead them away from trusting in him. The Israelites were to destroy all the pagan idols, altars and any remembrance of them in the land. These people are Jesus’ treasured possession. They are a people of his own choosing. And the Lord didn’t choose them because they were so great, numerous, so hot etc. Indeed they were the most pitiful group of people in the world. He loved them because of his promise to their fathers, who also weren’t so hot, but they trusted in his promise.
Now in the New Testament St. Peter writes concerning you, 1Pe 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (10) Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Like the Israelites, 1Co 1:26-31 … “consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. (27) But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; (28) God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, (29) so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (30) And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, (31) so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”
So St. Paul also tells us, 2Co 6:14-16 “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?… Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? (16) What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’” We too are called out of darkness into his marvelous light. We Christians, while not called to destroy the pagans around us, are to destroy the pagan in us with confession, repentance and the free forgiveness of sins on account of Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus Christ, you are faithful to your promises. By your Holy Spirit and your promises root out all wickedness in our hearts and make us your treasured possession. Amen.