LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Special and Insignificant
"Not because the LORD loved you and chose you, for you were the least of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you..." (Deut. 7:7-8).
Behold the glory and the misery of the people of God, be it Israel, or the church. It is the favored people, the special people, the most blessed of all the peoples of the earth. However, God then tells them that they are, at the same time, the most insignificant of all peoples. One is the condition subsequent to God's call, the other is the condition prior to that call. One is the condition in itself, the other is the condition in God.
God desires that both should always be very clear and distinct in the hearts of his people; he desires that we should not lose sight of so great a truth, lest we should confuse things, lest we should become puffed up and this become the cause of our ruin.
One of the reasons why we are so often before the Lord's Table is to remember where the Lord took us from, so that we remember our condition prior to our calling and salvation. Being before the Table makes it clear that it was necessary an act of substitution and atonement for our sins, so that we could become what we are today before God.
The fact that we are today a special people, a different people, and that we are so used to it, could make us forget how insignificant we are. We will not say "we were", but "we are", like Paul, who said "...sinners, of whom I am the chief" (1 Tim. 1:15). It is enough that the mighty hand of God loosens us a little to make us realize the terrible reality of this fact.
Paul writes to the Corinthians to the same effect: "For consider your calling, brethren, that ye are not many wise according to the flesh, neither many mighty, neither many noble: but the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he might shame the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he might shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, and things which are not, that he might destroy them which are, lest any man should boast in his own sight" (1 Cor. 1:26-29). God knows how forgetful and vain our memory is, how prone we are to see only one side of the coin, the better side.
However, the Holy Spirit, in that wise administration of our career, and of our circumstances, doses adequate portions of triumphs and defeats, of joys and sorrows, so that, on the one hand, we may come down from our pride, and so that, on the other hand, we may rise from our sense of unworthiness. Nothing escapes his beneficent and omniscient hand. Nothing will go beyond what he providentially permits.
We are so insignificant, that only God could make us special; but at the same time we are so special, that no one in himself can match what we are - for we bear eternity within, the stamp of divine possession and calling.