A common phrase we hear from the Lord is that they will be His people and He will be their God.

In Ezekiel 11, God says it after He gives them the promise to give them a new heart and a new spirit. Then they will be His people and He will be their God.

Was He not their God before that? Were they not His people?

It’s an interesting thought. As people of the new covenant who have been given a new heart and a new spirit, we know that we belong to God. It was receiving His Spirit that made us His.

In one sense, God is God of everyone and everything. He is Lord Almighty, the Supreme authority of the universe. There is certainly no one greater. What He says goes. He spoke and the world was. He will give the word and it will be destroyed.

So that can’t be what He’s talking about when He says, “He will be their God.” I think of this as us coming into the family, God becoming our Father.

It’s an intimate, personal thing to have God be your God. It means He has His eye on you. He’s ready to come to your defense. He’ll go mama bear if someone is trying to hurt you. You’ll be His.

And for Him to be your God is just as intimate and personal. We give ourselves over to Him to control our lives, to lead and guide, to do with us as He wills. We give ourselves over to Him freely because we know He’s already in control and know that He has chosen to love us, and that He already knows us deeply. He knows your thoughts, your motives. He knows what’s in your heart.

Others have detestable things in their hearts and it will come back to hurt them.

We have God Himself in our hearts by His Spirit and it will cause us to keep the commandments, to love and to obey.