Deuteronomy 7 REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE In this culture of tolerance and complacency when anything and everything goes, most people are offended by true justice taking its course for the benefit of the whole society. Many people want personal independence without accountability to anyone else. Consequently, a lot of people rail against God or even refuse to believe God exists because He doesn't fit their description of a god to which they want to submit. The existential movement has lifted mankind's opinion of itself to a place where many people believe in a god of their own imagination. Moses made it clear to the Israelites that beside being a merciful and loving God, He was just and righteous. In His infinite wisdom He knows that evil allowed to go unchecked will go on forever and get increasingly worse. There are social and political groups in the Middle East today that are determined to destroy all who do not agree with their dogma. God's command to destroy the idolatrous society of the promised land was both His judgment on the evil that was practiced there, and a safety measure for the people of God who were going to move into the land. Idolatry and immorality will eventually destroy a nation. We are in danger of that happening in our nation.
Some people think of God only as a loving, grandfather type of person who overlooks what is righteous and just in order to have a kindly fuzzy-feeling relationship with sinful people. Their opinion is that God is too nice to punish sin by separating unrepentant sinners from Him forever. To relegate the Righteous, Holy God to a soft-touch, characterless person is to underestimate Him. "He is of holier eyes that to look upon sin." His sovereign choice is directed to those who appreciate His grace and goodness, and are willing to come in repentance for their sinfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. He intends those who accept His offer of salvation by grace through faith, into His family as adopted sons and daughters by virtue of the fact that we have been bought with the price of the precious blood of Christ.
By the Spirit of God, we have been set aside to be a holy people who are godly in life and are separated from the sinful ways of those who love their sin. God calls them a "special" people because they have been made the focus of divine attention. Every person has been loved by God who "so loved the world." But only those who willingly respond to His love and accept His mercy that will save them from hell, are brought into His family. When His love is directed upon them and they are warmed by the sweet influences of His grace, then a response from a redeemed soul is, "We love Him because He first loved us." God's people are a redeemed people. The Israelites were redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb. We have been redeemed, "not of corruptible things such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from you fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."
The changes that happen to a child of God often come one lesson at a time as we begin to learn what it means to be a Christian and how to act in ways becoming to a child in God's family. The process of maturing is real and continues though life. We may not recognize a whole lot of changes in one's life at first, but usually there is first a change of attitude toward God and then toward "the brethren." When the past life is compared with this present life, the change in a believer becomes obvious. The child of God needs to know the best way to avoid sin and its consequences is to stay as far away as possible from anything that would defile us.
Moses assured the people of Israel that God wanted to bless them, and would bless them when they kept the terms of the covenant and obeyed the Lord their God. When we begin to realize how much God has blessed us and in how many ways, we begin to wake up to what it means to be a child of God. We are not in a position to bargain with God because there is no reason to. Our inheritance which we enjoy now and will forever, is far more than we can put into words, or measure in material ways. We have all things that pertain to life and godliness now. In the future we will understand far more of what all that consists of. God knows what we need and makes it available to us. Those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior have never experienced the blessings associated with the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, a spiritual family, the comfort and power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. As long as Israel followed the Lord, they were abundantly supplied and could experience what they never had as a people for hundreds of years.
Israel was to "dwell alone" among all the nations as an identifiable people who were blessed because "their God was the Lord." God preserved them as He does us today when we "come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord. And I will be a Father to you and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." God preserves His people even though we are small and despised among the millions of people in Christendom.
From time to time we need to review and reaffirm our commitment to our Lord. To be yielded to Him without reservation and in full commitment to Him is to be expected of those who know and why we are still in the world. We are in the world but not of the world. This is not where our values and commitments lie. A committed people know, and welcome, the call and commission of God to serve Him and love Him. "We are not our own." We are His people.