“We love because he loved us first” – I John 4:19 (NIV)
Who doesen’t love being favoured. Favor is something which would bring smile to any of us. When Joseph presented his two children, Manasseh and Ephraim, to Jacob for a blessing, their grandfather placed his right hand on the younger brother, Ephraim, before his elder brother. Joseph resisted and tried to influence his father against. “But his father refused and said, “I know my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations” (Gen 48:19).
Actually Jacob he himself had been a favored child over his older brother. Earlier when his father, Isaac, was about to pass on, he called on his elder son, Esau, to be blessed of him (Gen 27:7). But his mother, Rebekah, tricked their father and had the younger son be blessed before. When Esau found out he cried out in protest to Isaac but without much success. “I have made him lord over you, and I have sustained him with grain and wine” (Gen 27:37).
Favor had followed their grandfather, Abraham, too. So much so that when he and his nephew Lot once found their herdsmen wrestling each other for pasture due to their immense herds of cattle, Abraham, assured of the Lords favor, decided to leave the best land to Lot. But God still blessed Abraham even with his seemingly poor choice. “All the land that you see I will give you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you” (Gen 13:16-17).
As Believers we too have been chosen and favored not because there was anything deserving but that God loved us first. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet of nation” (Jeremiah 1:5).
Favor is unmerited grace. God favors us not because there is any good in us. “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God – not by works, so that one can boast” (Ephesians 2: 8-9). God favors us because He chose us to be His children. Today may you confidently walk out in the knowledge you are a favoured child of God!
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, I thank you that you have chosen and blessed me as a child of favour, and today I pray to walk out with that favour upon my life to experience your full blessings, this I pray in Jesus’ name!
