230. Your God and My People
Jeremiah 31:1, 3 At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
The oft-repeated promise, “I will be your God and you will be my people,” is given here as a result of the love and the lovingkindness of God. God draws us with His lovingkindness, loves us with an everlasting love, and becomes the God of all the families of His people, and the believers become God’s people.
“The Lord is our God” is a promise that the very Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His life on the cross to pay for our sins and rose from the dead to give us eternal life, is the One who is my God. The God who loves and gives life is our God. We are happy to look to Him for every good thing we need for the sustenance of our physical and spiritual life. As God He is able to do for us what needs to be done. As our God He wants to do for us what needs to be done for our welfare and wellbeing.
“They shall be my people” is a promise that obligates the Lord to be responsible for us and for our good. We are irresponsible to care for ourselves in the right way; we are not able to provide the good and right things for ourselves and our families; we may want to care and do the right things, but we get lazy, selfish and uncaring; we are not wise enough to see what we really need. If I were my own person under my own control I would make a mess of things, but if I am His then I can trust Him to straighten everything out and do for me the right thing. “I am His and He is mine.”