Heavenly Father, we thank You for all You did for us the past week and we are grateful for the miracles lined up for us again in the new week. Receive all the glory, honour, adoration forever and ever.
Beloved, we are at the final lap of this month, just few days to go and the month is gone. Whoop, the Lord indeed has been gracious to us all through, comforting and encouraging us.
Briefly again this week, we will be considering another heroine in lineage of grace. This vessel honoured by God was the least of them all according to human standard but who can condemn whom God has chosen to honour.
The vessel of honour in the lineage of grace under consideration today is no other person than the mother of wisest king that has ever been; a wife of a king after God’s heart; though not attainable by works but by grace – is no other person than “Bathsheba” the wife of Uriah the Hitters.
Who could believe our report that a woman gotten by the way of adultery will be counted among the Lord’s chosen? David killed her husband in other to cover their acts but it was late. Days gone into weeks and weeks into months, the seed of adultery shall not live but die according to God’s verdicts.
The Lord condemns David’s action through Prophet Nathan. He humble Himself and seek God’s forgiveness. Having obtained God’s forgiveness, Bathsheba was divinely honour as one that will bring forth the son that will sit on the throne after David.
What a divine election! She was not on the merit list but God elected her into that position as one of the grandmother’s of our Saviour Jesus (Matt 1:16) (Jer 29:11-14).
Beloved, grace was the basis for her selection not by works so that she will not boast (Eph 2:8-10).
Divine Election can be said to be the identification and preferential selection by God for His Purpose. Another example of Divine Election in the bible is the child of Rebecca, while they were still in the womb, heaven made pronouncement about the older serving the younger (Rom 9:10-13; 16);
So we can say that divine election does not depend on human desire but on God’s mercy (vs16). Absalom was meant to be king after his father, David but He was not God’s choice. Solomon was instead of Absalom in the plan of salvation (Matt 1:6).
Beloved, election can also be seen as calling, chosen. Salvation is first and the primary evidence of God’s election because we are not called to live unholy life. In Gal 6:1-2, we are called to restore one another in love.
Is there any one that needs restoration, take this opportunity and come back to Christ. God is not interested in our falling but in our raising, arise and go back to your Father. He is waiting to welcome you home. God is an expert searcher; yours is not an exception:
“For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.” Exod. 34:11
This He does at the first when His elect are like wandering sheep that know not the Shepherd or the fold. How wonderfully doth the Lord find out His chosen! Jesus is great as a seeking Shepherd as well as a saving Shepherd. Though many of those His Father gave Him have gone as near to hell-gate as they well can, yet the Lord by searching and seeking discovers them, and draws nigh to them in grace. He has sought out us: let us have good hope for those who are laid upon our hearts in prayer, for He will find them out also.
The Lord repeats this process when any of His flock stray from the pastures of truth and holiness. They may fall into gross error, sad sin, and grievous hardness; but yet the Lord, who has become a surety for them to His Father, will not suffer one of them to go so far as to perish.
He will by providence and grace pursue them into foreign lands, into abodes of poverty, into dens of obscurity, into deeps of despair; He will not lose one of all that the Father has given Him. It is a point of honor with Jesus to seek and to save all the flock, without a single exception.
What a promise to plead, if at this hour I am compelled to cry, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep”!
Is there any among us who has fallen from the state of grace, please reconnect yourself back to your Maker. Let us return to Him in Holiness for our God is Holy.
Salvation is the reason behind grace and salvation point us to eternal life in Christ Jesus (1 Thess 5:9). Let us therefore work out our salvation with fear and trembling:
“In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, holiness unto the Lord.” Zech. 14:20
Happy day when all things shall be consecrated, and the horses’ bells shall ring out holiness to the Lord! That day has come to me. Do I not make all things holy to God? These garments, when I put them on or take them off, shall they not remind me of the righteousness of Christ Jesus, my Lord?
Shall not my work be done as unto the Lord? Oh, that today my clothes may be vestments, my meals sacraments, my house a temple, my table an altar, my speech incense, and myself a priest! Lord, fulfill thy promise, and let nothing be to me common or unclean.
Let me in faith expect this. Believing it to be so, I shall be helped to make it so. As I myself am the property of Jesus, my Lord may take an inventory of all I have, for it is altogether His own; and I resolve to prove it to be so by the use to which I put it this day. From morning till evening I would order all things by a happy and holy rule. My bells shall ring -why should they not? Even my horses shall have bells — who has such a right to music as the saints have? But all my bells, my music, my mirth, shall be turned to holiness, and shall ring out the name of “The Happy God.”
May we find worthy of God election. You cannot serve God in your power, except in His power and Spirit. Therefore let us come before Him trembling that we may obtain mercy and grace to live according.
Beloved, this week is blessed in the Name of the Lord Jesus. Go and do exploits in the Lord.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
Evang. Ifeoma Ohondu.
