Peace in the Assurance of your Salvation

​In Deuteronomy 7, as God is leading the Israelites through the wilderness, he says something interesting to them through Moses as he reminds them of why he delivered them and why he did NOT deliver them.  Beginning in v.6 he says to them, “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.  It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (vv.6-8).  In other words, God delivered them not because they were such a wonderful people and God loves them not because they are so lovable.  God delivered them and loves them because he is faithful to his promises.  He made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he intends to keep those covenant promises.  This is sometimes difficult for Christians to accept.  We like to think that if we are saved, it is because God saw something in us worth saving.  It is because we are so lovable.  Yet the Bible describes us in our unbelieving state in this way: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.  Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.  The venom of asps is under their lips.  Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.  Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.  There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:10-18).  Thus, if God has saved us from our sin, it is not because God saw something good in us.  The only thing God saw in us was sin.  Rather, if we are saved, if only because God is rich in mercy and love and grace, and is faithful to the promise he made to Abraham that through him he would be a blessing to all nations (Gen. 12:2-3; Gal. 3:7-8).  This truth should bring us great comfort in that since our getting saved had nothing do with us, so also our staying saved has nothing to do with us.  It is God alone who saves us and it is God alone who keeps us saved.