Treasured Possessions

Deuteronomy 7:6-14:  For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7  It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you--for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8  It was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, 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 maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10  and who repays in their own person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him. 11  Therefore, observe diligently the commandment--the statutes and the ordinances--that I am commanding you today. 12  If you heed these ordinances, by diligently observing them, the LORD your God will maintain with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors; 13  he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you. 14  You shall be the most blessed of peoples, with neither sterility nor barrenness among you or your livestock.

The people are called a “treasured possession” of God. This is deeply affirming for people who were “the fewest of all the people” and redeemed “from the house of slavery”.  Sadly, what was an act of Divine magnanimous compassion in the Exodus, had become a badge of exclusive privilege by the time of Jesus. He confronts the religious leadership of his day for the way they thought to claim exclusive ownership of God’s love.

Let those of us who have had an experience of Divine love be reminded that the love of God is given to share with other people, and not to cling to as a sign of spiritual superiority.  

Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit,
Into every troubled breast!
Let us all in Thee inherit;
Let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its Beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

 Words: Charles Wes­ley, Hymns for Those that Seek and Those That Have Re­demp­tion in the Blood of Je­sus Christ, 1747.

Ordinary 18 

40 God’s Abundant Provision

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 249.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.