January 13, 2023

Passage Read: 1 Samuel 9-12
Meditation Verse: 12:22

Thought

The Lord was pleased to make me His own, so He will not reject me. That promise should amaze me and fill me with gratitude and security, such that I am glad to do anything He asks. It should move me to grateful obedience and faithfulness to Him, knowing that He gladly chose me and commits Himself to me! My grateful obedience should bring more glory to His name. To take His love for granted and live however I want is to think too highly of myself, as if I deserved His choosing of me, and too little of Him, which brings dishonor to His name.

Application

I was not in any way worthy of His choosing of me, yet He chose to bestow His unshakable love on me. The more I see my unworthiness to be, the more precious His love and commitment to me becomes, and the more I am willing to surrender myself to Him. That is why it is so hard for the rich or the proud to enter the kingdom of heaven: God's love for them doesn't impress them because they think so highly of themselves; it's natural for God to love them! But the poor, the despised, the rejected, for them it's hard to believe that God would care about them, but when they get it, it transforms them. The degree of love and submission to God that I have depends squarely on how I see myself; that's why God delights in the humble and contrite. The more lowly and unworthy I understand myself to be, the more grateful and given over I will be to God.