OUR LORD WHO DECLARES HIS LOVE FOR US

The book of Malachi starts with the first 3 verse as follows;

A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’

“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

The Lord straightforwardly says to Jacob, " I have loved you". 

Anticipating the question of how God loved them, the Lord contrasts His love for Jacob with His disaffection for Essau. The point being made is that God's love for Jacob is not an amorphous love that is ubiquitous but rather that it is particular and that it is centered on a person.

The object of God love is blessed while the one not loved is left to the fortunes of chance and chaos as Esau's life ended up.

This is the Lord's favour that He shows to His loved ones; They are under his watch and protection where all the conditions of their lives are measured and  "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." - Roman 8 verse 2

Amen.