Romans 9:19-29

Romans 9:19-29
English Standard Version (ESV)

  God is mercy and love.
  To believe otherwise is to convince ourselves that we are better than we are.  It's not a hard thing to do, especially when we can look around and find plenty of evidence that we aren't actually terrible people and are quite capable of committing good deeds every now and again, but the problem we have is that we then weave a story using our occasional good deeds as evidence that we are actually completely good and worthy of God's love.
  In fact, the only reason we are worthy of God's love is because we have a Savior who died on a cross for us so that we might be free from sin.  Because God freely chose to do this, we can have hope and abundant life.  God did not have to do this, but chose to, because God is mercy and love.
  So let us cling to God's love and give thanks for his mercy, for while we deserved neither, we receive both in Jesus Christ.