Deuteronomy 7:12-15 NKJV
“Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock. And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.
This passage reveals the pathway to the benefits of the love of God. Here the Israelites are told that as they listen to and obey the Word of God, He will love them. However, He just told them that His love for them was not based on them, but on His covenant with their forefathers. So what does He mean here since they cannot earn His love? What is meant here is that God’s love will be manifested in their lives as they cooperate with Him. He was telling them to do things that would lead them into the path of His blessings and they would experience what His love wanted to do for them. There is a technical reality and a practical one. A father can technically have a son based on the birth records but for all practical purposes he would not be able to be a father to that child if the child runs away from him. So in the same sense, God already loved them but His love could not be a practical reality unless they allowed Him to love on them by putting themselves in a position where He could. We need to know up front that God loves us before we do anything. Then we must respond to that love by following His instructions so we can experience the benefits of that wonderful unsurpassed love.