GOD Morning! August 10 / Are You Jealous Yet?

GOD Morning! August 10 / Are You Jealous Yet?

Romans 11:1-18

11 I ask then: Has God totally rejected and disowned His people? Of course not! Why, I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin!

2 No, God has not rejected and disowned His people [whose destiny] He had marked out and appointed and foreknown from the beginning. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

This is what I love about God. He doesn't reject anyone. Even when we repeatedly turn our backs on Him. He is still right there where we left Him! 

Where was your last encounter with God??? Go back there and fall on your knees. You will find Him again!

3 Lord, they have killed Your prophets; they have demolished Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.

4 But what is God’s reply to him? I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal!

5 So too at the present time there is a remnant (a small believing minority), selected (chosen) by grace (by God’s unmerited favor and graciousness).

6 But if it is by grace (His unmerited favor and graciousness), it is no longer conditioned on works or anything men have done. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace [it would be meaningless].

His Grace goes on and on! No matter what you've done! Just go back and find Jesus, the lover of your soul.

7 What then [shall we conclude]? Israel failed to obtain what it sought [God’s favor by obedience to the Law]. Only the elect (those chosen few) obtained it, while the rest of them became callously indifferent (blinded, hardened, and made insensible to it).

8 As it is written, God gave them a spirit (an attitude) of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear, [that has continued] down to this very day.

9 And David says, Let their table (their feasting, banqueting) become a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a just retribution [rebounding like a boomerang upon them];

10 Let their eyes be darkened (dimmed) so that they cannot see, and make them bend their back [stooping beneath their burden] forever.

Ever felt this way??? I have. My eyes have been dull and my back has been stooped with the heavy load of sin. 

11 So I ask, Have they stumbled so as to fall [to their utter spiritual ruin, irretrievably]? By no means! But through their false step and transgression salvation [has come] to the Gentiles, so as to arouse Israel [to see and feel what they forfeited] and so to make them jealous.

12 Now if their stumbling (their lapse, their transgression) has so enriched the world [at large], and if [Israel’s] failure means such riches for the Gentiles, think what an enrichment and greater advantage will follow their full reinstatement!

But thanks be to God, I have been reinstated!

13 But now I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I lay great stress on my ministry and magnify my office,

14 In the hope of making my fellow Jews jealous [in order to stir them up to imitate, copy, and appropriate], and thus managing to save some of them.

Are you jealous? Are you wishing you would have never left? It's okay, you can come back!

15 For if their rejection and exclusion from the benefits of salvation were [overruled] for the reconciliation of a world to God, what will their acceptance and admission mean? [It will be nothing short of] life from the dead!

God wants to resurrect you into newness of life! He wants to bring you back from the dead! 

You don't have to be jealous. Just go back and find Jesus, the lover of your soul.

I tried so hard to live an ordinary Christian life. I fooled myself into believing that I could have non Christian friends and Christian friends. I wanted both groups to accept me. It never worked out. What a blessed relief it was to finally give up and become a radical Christian. The real me came out of hiding. Both my non Christian and Christian friends appreciated the new me. 

"Thank You Jesus for Your precious word. Your word is brand new every time that I study it! Please keep on renewing me every morning. Please keep on scrubbing my soul and making me brand new. How I love You, Jesus! Amen."