SYNOPSIS: In the midst of the reading of God’s law—which we in the modern world often think of as restrictive and onerous—Moses reminds us that “God loves his people,” and that “all his holy ones are in his hands.” Now understand that the love of God described in this verse, as well as throughout the whole Bible, is not simply an emotional love. As Moses pictures it in Deuteronomy 33:3, it is a practical love. His love for his people—“his holy ones,” Moses calls them—leads him to hold them in his hands. In other words, God’s love is a love that is tender and close, it is a love that protects and provides, it is a love the gives and guides, and it is a love that is constant and unrelenting. And don’t forget, it is a love that will hold you fast throughout this very day.

The Journey // Focus: Deuteronomy 33:3

Indeed, God loves his people; all his holy ones are in his hands.

God loves you and me! As many times as we have heard that, as much as we know that to be theologically true, sometimes we forget it. Sometimes the knowledge of our Creator’s indescribable love for us in our heads doesn’t travel to our hearts where it impacts us at the deepest part of our being. I hope today is not one of those “sometimes” for you; I think you need to hear this loud and clear today: God loves you!

John the Beloved, the Apostle of love, said it so simply yet profoundly in 1 John 3:1,

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are!

What a great verse! It is profoundly simple yet poetically beautiful and incomprehensibly grace-filled—and it is personally true: Indeed, God loves his people—that means you; you are held in his loving hands. Of course, John is also the author of the most well-known, well-loved verse in the entire Bible—John 3:16,

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

John 3:16—someone has rightly said that John captured the whole Bible in just one verse. There is not a simpler, yet more profound truth in Scripture than this: God loved the whole world so much that he gave his Son to die for it. But let me remind you that even though the verse comes to us grammatically in the past tense, there’s nothing past tense about God’s love. God still loves the world! His love is present tense.

Likewise, let me remind you that even though the love of God described here is universal, it is also a profoundly personal love for you and me. Yes, God so loved the world, but he didn’t just look at it as one big mass of nameless faces. When the Father looked at the world and loved it, he was looking at you, his cherished child. St. Augustine, the 4th century North African Bishop, one of the most influential figures in church history, said it this way,

God loves each and every one of us as if there were only one of us.

Now understand that the love of God described in these verses, as well as throughout the whole Bible, is not simply an emotional love. As Moses pictures it in Deuteronomy 33:3, it is a practical love. His love for his people—“his holy ones,” Moses calls them—leads him to hold them in his hands. In other words, it is a love that is tender and close, it is a love that protects and provides, it is a love the gives and guides, and it is a love that is constant and unrelenting.

Notice also that God’s love is expressed in the midst of the giving of his law to guide his people. That means his love cannot be known in its breath and depth apart from walking in his ways and living according to his will. In that sense, there are conditions to his love: you and I can neither understand it nor experience it in any old way we want; we can only come into an experience of divine love through our obedience to God. And that, obviously, is why it is reserved for his holy ones—those who have responded to his call by lovingly surrendering their lives to him and have thus become his very own people. Yes, while God loves the world and sent Jesus to die in order to redeem it, the world will never know that love apart from the experience of redemption.

Now, back to God’s love for you. Did you realize that if you were the only person on this planet, God’s love for you would still have led him to send his Son to die for your sins? Just for you, there would still be a John 3:16. I hope that you will take that simple truth into the core of your being today, because at certain times on this day you will need to lean into it. Yes, God loves you!

Karl Barth was one of the most brilliant and complex intellectuals of the twentieth century. He wrote volume after massive volume on the meaning of life and faith. A reporter once asked Dr. Barth if he could summarize what he had said in all those volumes. Barth thought for a moment and then said,

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Go with that today, and nothing much can go wrong for you!