“Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples….” (v. 5)

The unforgettable, inescapable, unassailable headline is this:

God’s gift of salvation—His gracious rescue of us, accomplished in Christ—is the gift of faith. We cannot earn it. We add nothing to its effect nor to our election. It is a gift.

But…what does it mean to live by it, to grow in it, to remain in Him?

That’s where the “if” comes in.

In Exodus, God graciously rescued His people by His own power. Yet He did not free them for an unrestrained freedom. He saved them for lives that bring Him glory, mark the people as His, and reflect His goodness and His truth on the earth. “If you carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession….”

And, in Christ, the principle holds.

We are to remain in His Word. We are to match action to orthodoxy. We are to carefully consider the truth He has given us and walk in it.

That’s what marks a people as His on the earth. If you and I would listen to Him—and obey!—the world will know to Whom we belong.

— Tyler