In my Bible study this week, I noted a repeated refrain, a significant theme that needs repeating! God chooses us to be HIS people, to dwell among us, to be our GOD!
Then this morning, Ann Voskamp’s Facebook post reiterated the theme in a beautifully poetic way.
Notice what God says over and over …
And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. … And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Genesis 17:4, 7-8
God spoke to Moses and said … Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God …’
Exodus 6:7
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine …
Exodus 19:5
I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
Leviticus 26:11-12
So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord your God.
Numbers 15:40-41
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.
Deuteronomy 7:6
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
Deuteronomy 14:2
And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments …
Deuteronomy 26:18
You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God … that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Deuteronomy 29:13
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Psalm 95:6-7
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture
and the sheep of his hand.
Know that the Lord, he is God!
Psalm 100:3
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Fear not, for I am with you;
Isaiah 41:10
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:33
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
Ezekiel 36:27-28
But I am the Lord your God
Hosea 13:4
from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me,
and besides me there is no savior.
You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
Joel 2:27
and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
“And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people‘; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”
Zechariah 13:9
[Caiaphas] did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
John 11:51-52
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16
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.
2 Corinthians 6:16
“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. 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.”
1 Peter 2:9-10
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
Revelation 21:3
Do you see how this refrain is all throughout scripture! Our great God, our Creator, didn’t just set this big earth into motion, send us off spinning, expecting us to make it on our own. Instead, just like He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden, He proclaims over and over He is our God, we are His people, and He chooses us! He chooses to dwell with us in mercy and love! “???? And He walks with me and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own ????! Actually, because of Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, God doesn’t just walk beside us but lives within us! Praise Him!
God has written us into HIS story!
Rejoice as His chosen one today!
