Deuteronomy 7:6 "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.
I wonder how you would hear these words as an Israelite looking forward to the promised land. You are a "treasured possession" of God "out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." Would this statement have you bowing in wonder at God's mercy and grace, or would you stand tall with pride thinking how much better you are than those other nations?
In the New Testament we have a similar statement being made about the church. 1Peter 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. When you realize that you are part of God's church, chosen by God for his own possession, how does that make you feel? Is there something special in you? Are you better than others around you? Did God see something in you that allows you to hold on to some sort of pride? Can you say, "I'm a better candidate for God's family than most people in this world?" Of course not. Peter says that you are God's possession because you received mercy. God in his infinite electing love did not give his church what we all truly deserve - an eternity under his infinite wrath because of our negligence to love and glorify him in our God-given life and our rebellion against living for him in every moment of our day. We simply deserve hell.
How can a people who deserve an eternal hell be arrogant about being God's possession? We do so by under-valuing the enormous gift of grace and the infinite cost of God's grace to bring us into his family. We lose sight of the devastation of our own sinfulness and the infinite glory of God's holiness. We lose sight of the perfect and boundless nature of God's love, mercy, and grace. When we lose sight of this, we look at others around us with the effortless ease of our pointing fingers. When we lose the infinite measurement of grace toward us, we become measurers of the entitlement of others to receive that same grace we so desperately needed.
Being God's treasured possession is such a mind-bowing thought that we should no longer be surprised by the sin of the world in front of our eyes. We should be compassionate ambassadors of the grace of Christ that is the only hope for everyone who is no less underserving than us. Sure, the world's sin deserves hell - so did ours.
I wonder what might have happened if we had this discussion with Jonah. Would he have boarded that boat in an attempt to run away from Nineveh?
What about you?