Daily Lesson for March 25, 2021

 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.

This morning's Lesson gives us Paul worrying and fretting over his people and trying to hold on to the promise of hope for their future.

If anyone has ever worried over their people -- whether that be their church, or their synagogue, or their party, or even their country -- this is a good word from the apostle. Read the whole chapter and you see the argument he is making that a remnant of the people, saved by grace, will be sufficient to save the whole nation. In other words, Paul and those others worried over their own people are not to despair.

We must not despair now. God has not abandoned God's people. God has not abandoned God's world. This is our Father's world -- and our Mother's too! And we are God's people. So too are our brothers and our sisters and friends. God still holds out hope for them all. So should we.

Trust in the grace of God. Trust and be not dismayed. God is still at work redeeming the nations. And God is still at work redeeming our families and our communities.

There is an old saying, "We can't out-give God." We can't out-hope God either. God hopes. And God helps. And God is at work now to redeem Israel and all the rest of us also.

Thanks be to God.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.