Here’s the next installment of our Hopelessly Devoted series, which highlights a recent entry in our 365-day devotional, Daily Grace — now available in a smaller (4″ x 6″) travel edition! Grab it in our store or on Amazon.
Oh, and it’s ALSO available on our fancy new MBird phone app (iOS and Android).
Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the LORD your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the LORD set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today … For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. (Deut 10:14–15, 17–18)
Against the backdrop of polytheistic cultures in the ancient Near East, Old Testament writers were telling the story of a very different God than the other gods that people worshipped. This was not just a god who could influence fertility, command the weather, or guarantee success in conquering enemies. Greater than the gods who could control the natural world, this God was the source of all things. He created the heavens and the earth, and even “the heaven of heavens” belonged to him.
One might think this God to be too great, too mighty, and too awesome for humans to approach. Yet we are told that this God also loves people, not just for a short time, but for generations after generations — even if people of some of those generations would become unfaithful. Not only did this God love people; he had special love for the orphan and the widow, whose hearts have known loss and grief, who feel forgotten by those around them. He had special affection for those strangers whom others might have shunned because they were unfamiliar or different, who felt lost or unwelcome in the places or circumstances where they found themselves.
The God of gods and Lord of lords has special love for you. We are all like the orphan and the widow when we feel brokenhearted, lonely, or left behind; in all of these times, God has special love for us. When you feel unmoored, unknown, or unappreciated, you are like the stranger whom God welcomes in to share the warmth and comfort of his home. He calls you friend.
