“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. 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 redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Deut. 7:6-8(The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.)

Let’s look at two aspects of one of my all time favorite verses (although, you may hear me say that about a lot of verses!): first we’ll look at the phrase ~ “God has chosen you . . ” and the second, is the phrase ~ “the Lord set His love on you . . . “.

“God has chosen you” ~ one of the many amazing attributes of God is His sovereignty.  Sovereignty is about a supreme ruler (a monarch) and about that one having all power and authority ~ or, control. God is the Divine King and that carries with it three things: ownership ~ all things are His; authority ~ He has absolute right to do as He pleases; and, control ~ He is Master of the universe and nothing threatens His plans. Nothing in all of the universe and in all of history is outside His plan.

God chose the nation of Israel to be be His people ~ His treasured possession.  There was nothing about them ~ nothing they had done, or did, or would ever do . . .along with the fact that they were a very small people group at the time ~ that should make the Lord chose them.

But He did and He chose them to be recipients of His love.

Next phrase: “The Lord set His love on you” . . . . linger on those words for a moment.

This word ‘set’ is an interesting word . . . it is a prim root word in Hebrew and it only occurs in the Old Testament about 8 times (if I’ve counted right).  It means ~ “to be attached to”.  God chose to attach His love to this group of people.

In Scripture we also find the teaching of people having the option of ‘choosing’ also ~ what we call free will. Listen to what Eerdmans Bible Dictionary has to say: “God allowed the Hebrews either to accept his special love and gain his blessing or to reject his kindness and provoke his wrath (Deut. 4:7–10; cf. 30:19). In other words, the divinely initiated covenant recognized and fostered human responsibility: the Hebrews were to be “careful to do the commandment … statutes, and … ordinances” formulated by Yahweh (Duet. 4:11).”(Myers, A. C. (1987); (320). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.) They had a choice to make.

What is so amazing about all of this is that while we are reading and hearing how God dealt with Israel, the same God back then is the same God today and He deals with us the same way!  He can (and does) chose to set is love on us ~ and we have the ability to choose to respond to it.  We can accept it . . . or we can reject it.

There is nothing you can do . . . there is nothing you have done or will do . . that could make God want to chose you ~ but because He is owner of all things and because He has absolute right to . . . He chooses you. And He chooses to set His love on you.

How will you respond?

God’s love is a Sovereign love.