What does God do for those who belong to him? - Belonging - TouchPoints

Deuteronomy 28:9-10“The Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.”

God decided to communicate universal lessons to humanity through the nation of Israel. He made the choice to speak to and through Jewish people, and ultimately to become a Jewish person himself. God made Israel his own in a grand gesture to teach humanity about his gracious acceptance. Like Israel, all of us are unworthy of God’s acceptance, for we are all sinners and easily enslaved to worldly things. What awesome news it is that we can belong to the Lord God, the Creator of the universe!

Isaiah 26:19Those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!

“Life-giving light” is a picture of God’s resurrecting power. Belonging to God is an eternal relationship—one not only for this world but also for the world to come. The grave is not the last chapter of our lives, but merely a transitional one.

John 15:12-15This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.

We more fully understand how to love others because we have the example of Christ’s love for us. The fact that we belong to Jesus compels us to love one another. As friends of Jesus, we are responsible to love all our fellow believers. The challenge before us is to take seriously Jesus’ commandment to lay down our lives for one another.