Daily Lesson for April 11, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 11 verses 1 through 5:

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.’ 4But what is the divine reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ 5So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

There are times when we can feel so alone, like the whole world has gone after the false gods of money, media, and hyper-militarism. We wonder where our sense of values has gone. We wonder what the world is coming to. We wonder if God has left us to our own devices. 

Then we hear the promise in this morning’s Lesson. “God has not rejected God’s people.”

Remember Elijah, Paul says. He contended against his own people. He had written them all off for good. He thought he was all alone. But there was a remnant, 7,000 who had not bended the knee to kiss the god of Baal. Seven thousand is a Biblical number of completion.  It is a symbolic number for sufficiency. It is enough. 

“So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace,” Paul says.

God does not leave us to our own devices. By grace a remnant is left.  It may not seem like much. But it is sufficient. It is enough. By God’s grace it is enough to keep the world from falling apart.