#DailyDevotion You Are Saved Solely By Grace & Not By Anything In You
Romans 11 So I ask, “Has God rejected His people?” Certainly not — I’m an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham and of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has not rejected His people whom He chose long ago.
One might think that God has rejected his people Israel by the sheer number of Christians who do not claim to have Jewish or Israeli roots. Even by the time Paul writes his letter to the Romans the number of Gentile converts must have begun to outnumber the Jewish converts that this would even become an issue. Yet Paul uses himself to show that the LORD had not abandoned the Israelites though they had rejected him. He was an Israelite, a descendent of Abraham and of the tribe of Benjamin. All the apostles were Israelites. The five hundred who witnessed Jesus’ resurrection were all Israelites. Everyone converted at Pentecost, some three thousand souls were Israelites from every nation. The apostles would then go throughout the world, wherever the Jewish people had been dispersed and proclaimed Christ, from Britain to China, so the LORD Jesus may gather in his people.
Paul shows us that the LORD God always preserved a remnant unto himself from the tribes of Israel. He turns to the example of Elijah who thought he was alone yet the LORD preserved for himself some two thousand in Israel who had not kneed to Baal. Even in the Babylonian captivity we see there were some who were still faithful to the LORD Jesus.
The purpose of Paul’s demonstration here is to show that we come to faith and are preserved in faith by God’s grace. We do not preserve in the faith by our merits or strength and neither did the Israelites. They came to faith and persevered in the faith because of the gift of God. If it were because of their own merits or strength then it wouldn’t be grace.
So too you, you were chosen by grace without merit or character of your own before the foundation of the world in Christ Jesus. You were chosen to come to faith in Jesus Christ purely by the grace of God. You were not chosen because God knew you would come to faith in Jesus. You were chosen to come to faith in Jesus. You do not persevere in the faith because you are so good or faithful in yourself. You persevere in the faith and have faith because God chose you in Christ Jesus because of God’s choice of you.
So we rest, like the Israelites of old, solely on the grace of God given us in Christ Jesus. We do not look at ourselves for the assurance of our faith but to Jesus to earned, merited and won for us this grace, this gift of God of salvation.
Heavenly Father, by your free grace and favor continually look upon us in Christ Jesus, give us your Holy Spirit that we may persevere in faith and join you in your kingdom at the end of the age. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.