Who Is God’s Remnant?

A remnant is defined as a small group of people. It is sometimes defined as something left over. At other times it’s defined as a leftover piece of fabric remaining after the rest have been used up or sold.

Throughout the course of the history of mankind, God has always left a remnant.

From the beginning, Israel has been God’s elect nation. A nation who God foreknew and a nation that God selected to be His people and He selected to be their God. In the days of the Prophet Elijah, God let it be known that He had left a remnant. According to 1 Kings:19, Elijah thought the nation of Israel had totally departed from God. But God informed Elijah that He had left for Himself 7,000 people who would serve and honor Him. Those 7,000 were God’s remnant.

During the days of the Prophet Isaiah, God gave Isaiah a vision of Israel. The vision was told by Isaiah in Isaiah 1:1-9. Isaiah said the nation had become “a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that were corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.” Isaiah went onto say in verse 9, “ Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a small remnant, we should have been as Sodom and we should have been like Gomorrah.”

The New Testament tells us in Romans 11:5, “Even so then, at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace.”

Today the church serves as God’s chosen people. And like the children of Israel, the church has become a sinful nation, comprised of believers laden with iniquity. They are a seed of evildoers, with chicken who are more corrupt. They have forsaken the Lord and have provoked the Holy One unto anger. They have gone backwards. But despite of the state of the church and their children. God has once again left a small remnant. A remnant that is far from perfect, but a remnant that trusts God.

God’s remnant are those who understand they are saved by grace and not by works. Theo do not abide by the false teachings that you have to be living something, (works) in order to go to heaven. They simply do their best to live for God because they already know they are going to heaven.

God’s remnant are those who serve the God of their church and not the church of their God.

God’s remnant are those who acknowledge God in all their ways, even when their ways sometimes do not please God. They are the ones who always confess their sins to God while believing He is always faithful and just to forgive them of their sins and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness.

God’s remnant are those who know they are righteous simply because at conversion the righteousness of Christ was put on then. They have learned to accept Christ’s righteousness instead of trying to establish their own religious self-righteousness through church rituals and programs. They have also learned to put their trust in Christ instead of putting their trust in the church practices and activities.

God’s remnant are those who are blessed beyond measure despite their failures and weaknesses. They are blessed because they are pleasing toGod because of their faith. The Bible says over and over, that without faith it is impossible to please God.

God’s remnant are those who stand on God’s word and not the word of man, politicians, the media and hirelings. The believe God’s Word is true today, yesterday and forever. Political correctness is nor part of their character.

God still had a remnant today. Are you part of God’s Remnant?

Four Truths About God’s Provision

When you put your faith in Christ, Gd commissions Himself to protect, provide, and to care for you (Philippians 4:19). God always provides for His children, though often it is not in the way we expect or hope.

The challenge is for us to see His provision and care, even when it is different that we expect. Because God Is God, His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9). But He graciously gives us insight into what He is doing in the Scriptures.

God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, but you may be aware of only two or three of them. Over and over again, Jesus’s disciples missed what He was doing right in front of them. They missed the point of the miracles. They missed the lessons. Which should give us hope for our own lack of clarity today.

Every now and again, I catch a glimpse of all the things God is doing in my life. And I am in awe of these things. I have never gone without and I have faith because God has never let me down.

Here are four important encouragements about how God provides and cares for you.

1. God May Provide Differently Than We Expect.The Israelites escaped captivity in Egypt only to face the challenges of the desert. One of the biggest challenges for such a large group of people was enough food to eat. Over and over again God provided supernaturally for His people. If God could provide for many thousands of Israelites in the middle of a desert, He can surely provide for you and your families needs. One of the testimonies in Scripture is “I have been young, and now I’m old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or His children begging for bread” (Psalm 37:25).

But, in the Bible we read that even with God’s provisions the Israelites still complained and grumbled in the desert. They longed for the food they left behind in Egypt. God was literally providing bread from heaven- enough for each day – but the wanted His provision in a different way. They wanted it their own way.

This lesson has spoken to me over and over again. Ask God to provide for you in whatever way deems fit. Don’t grumble against God’s supernatural, unexpected ways. Just trust Him.

Maybe you are at a job and doing work different than what you expected or hoped for. Don’t always wish for something different. My Father used to tell me, no matter what work you do, do it as if God is your boss. Do the best work you can do and you will be blessed. Always be thankful. This doesn’t mean you can’t move towards the job of your dreams, but it might inspire the faith to stop complaining about the way God has provided for you in the current moment, and invest yourself fully to wherever you are.

2. God Provides More Of Himself. Our greatest need is for more of God, and this is something He gladly gives us.

Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Matthew 7:9-11

Scripture tells us to make the pursuit of God the primary function of our lives. Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

What is the deepest root of your joy? What God gives to you? or what God is for you? God graciously guides us into a greater realization that our ultimate need is for more of His word, more of His ways – more of Him.

3. God’s Ultimate Provision Has Already Been Given In The Gospel. If your like me you ask God for many things, but the greatest thing we could ever receive from Him He has already given. And many as blind to it. What God has given us in the gospel is light-years ahead of every other provision and care we would ever seek from Him. When we trust in Christ, we have decisively secured for us every ultimate good thing from Him. It’s just a matter of time.

James 1:17 reminds us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with who there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Every truly good thing in our lives comes straight for the Father. The ultimate good He provided us, through who much of the other good things to come to us, is Jesus. Jewish the ultimate treasure.

4. God provides Finally In Eternity. Hebrews 11 gives us two different perspectives on God’s provision and care for us. Some, by faith, came through this life victorious, while others lost their lives. Both are commended for their mighty faith.

God does not always provide and care for us in ways we might expect in this life. The Bible does not promise this. Peter, James, John, and Paul gave their lives for the gospel. They viewed the gospel as a treasure not to be lost at any cost. They suffered gladly because they had so in the gospel that had for more worth.

This life is fleeting. This life is fragile. This life is but a vapor’s breath. The next life, the age to come, is where all God’s provision for us will ultimately make sense and come together as a whole.

We may not receive healing in this life, but we will receive perfect healing in eternity. We may not see answers to our greatest prayers in this life, but we will receive fully in eternity. We long for our world to stop raging and be at peace, but ultimate peace will only come in eternity.

Our hearts ache under the pressures of this life, but it is only because we were made for another world. We are travelers -aliens if you will on this earth. “But we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

I get asked by many, why I don’t do this or that? Everyone else is doing it. I tell them “I am not everybody else.” I would rather follow God and have His provisions then follow what everyone else is doing and have no provision. I love being a child of God.

Counting Your Blessings

More often than not, our sense of what is available to us, and our belief about how much provision we have, is framed around our perspective. We can either focus our attention on what we lack, or offer gratitude for what we still have available to us.

By reminding ourselves of what God has done in our past, we are better positioned to identify with what we have in our present, and how God will always provide us with what we need in the future,

We see this specifically in Numbers 1:1-4, as God instructs the Israelites to take a detailed census if all the people that had escaped out of Egypt. I can imagine how Moses walked around examine every face, counting every head, he would have been overwhelmed by the magnitude of deliverance that God provided to His people.

God wanted Moses to do an audit and inventory of God’s past blessings, and how those blessings we’re literally standing before him.

This census would be important for Moses to remember, as he attempted to transition the Israelites out of a wilderness mindset and into the promised land. God had prepared for them. There were unprecedented challenges, and circumstances that would require unbelievable levels of trust. As Moses scanned the crowd of people, God wanted to encourage Moses, “If I did it before, I can do it again.”

Of course, there were practical implications for lining the people up, as they would have to go to battle. Knowing who is who, and who can do what, would be a great advantage to them.

But there were also spiritual implications for God’s instruction. Rather that Moses and the Israelites crunching the number of obstacles and adversities they were going to have to overcome. God wanted Moses to be counting heads, as He beckoned them to take the ground and territory He had prepared for them.

It is important today that we make conscious efforts to remember God’s past victories and deliverance in our lives. And resolve to keep His faithfulness front and center, while inviting the Holy Spirit to build our faith as we set out on the next challenge and obstacle we may face. By magnifying our provisions, we can mute our problems.

Today, take a moment to do an inventory, audit and census of your life. Count your many blessings; the people in your life, your provision, and all the way God protects you and your family.

Praise the One who blesses you, so that you can go on and be a blessing to others.

Changing Your Thought Pattern

Three Thought Patterns To Correct

How do you see yourself? Pause for a minute and think about it. What thoughts have you had about yourself today?

So many of us find ourselves basing our self-worth on how others see us and our accomplishments, feeling shame from our past, defining our value based on our looks, or setting unrealistic standards for ourselves.

But, it shouldn’t be this way. If only we could see ourselves as God sees us.

There are three thought patterns that can act as roadblocks to our thinking and living the way God desires for us. These destructive thought patterns were identified by a psychologist named Albert Ellis in 1873. Contrasting these ideas with what 1 Peter 1 tells us about how we can prepare our minds for action by adjusting our thinking to Scripture is the foundation of being holy in all we do (1 Peter 1:15).

Destructive Thought #1

“I must be loved or approved by virtually every person in my life.“

If we are living to make sure that others love us, we give them permission to evaluate us based on what we do – we give people the power to determine our self-worth.

When we leave home, many of us have “internalized parents” who are now voices in our head that tell us what we should do, what is important, and how we should do things. Have you ever been in a situation where you have to make a decision and you can hear your parents saying “That’s not responsible” or “I told you that would happen?”

Many of us are so concerned about being loved that we give the opposite sex permission to evaluate our self-worth. As adolescents, we might sacrifice our own identity to get attention and acceptance, even to the extent to pretending not to be bright or kind because we think the opposite sex won’t be impressed. Our we might deny ourselves food to lose weight to try and fit in with body images portrayed on TV or in magazines. Even as adults, we buy into the beauty myth, thinking that our appearance is our number one asset, and that it will bring us acceptance and approval from a spouse. Eating disorders about – anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating to name a few.

If we are living to make sure that others love us, we give people power to determine our self-worth.

We may even feel pressure from our church community to measure ourselves according to certain stereotypes – women are supposed to be nurturing, quiet and gentle, raise well- behaved children, and maybe even do crafts. And men should be competent spiritual leaders, provide for and protect their families, to be a manly man plus be in touch with their sensitive side.

As a woman I’ve never been quiet or gentle, I work just as hard as any man. I enjoy hunting, fishing, and love to barbecue my own food. Many find themselves negating the interests or gifts God has given us.

Destructive Thought #2

My past history is an all – Important determiner of my present behavior: because something once strongly affected my life, it should definitely continue to do so.

You may feel controlled by a secret. You may have had some happen to you that you have revealed to no one or perhaps to only a few people. Perhaps you feel shame about certain aspects of the family you grew up in, or maybe you have sinful habits you feel embarrassed about, such as gossip, lust, pornography, or a critical spirit. Maybe you are ashamed of some things you’ve done in the past. Or something that has been done to you.

If we don’t deal with issues I our past, they will continue to contribute us in some way in our present. But they don’t have to. We can deal with past sin, our family histories, as well as past violations to our bodies and minds.

It is important to identify whether our feelings in these situations are destructive shame or healthy convictions. Healthy conviction always separates our identity from our behavior. Shame links these two, so wring behavior taints our image of ourselves. Healthy conviction alerts us to the fact that we have done something that goes against our internalized values.

Biblical conviction is a God-given emotion that “red flags” a behavior and tells us it is an act of rebellion against God. It spurs us to confess our sin and experience the love and forgiveness God has provided for us through Jesus. 1 John 1:9 tells us, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.”

Biblical conviction is a God-given emotion that ‘red flags’ a behavior and tells us it is an act of rebellion against God. It is possible to silence God’s conviction by ignoring it.

Any feelings of guilt that come after we’ve confessed our sin are not from God, but may be from ourselves or from the evil one. We still have to live with the consequences of our sin, but God does not punish us for our sin, God disciplines us to get us back on track so we can continue to experience God’s love and plan for our lives. Our struggles can bring us closer to God and heighten our faith as we experience His faithfulness in forgiving us and drawing us closer to Him (Hebrews 12:4-13).

Destructive Thought #3

I should be thoroughly competent, adequate, and successful in all possible respects in order to consider myself worthwhile.

Ten percent of people will struggle with some form of clinical depression in their lifetime. Depression can be biological or situational, and often can be the result of both. However, one of the leading causes of depression is setting your standards so high that you cannot possibly live up to them. You are constantly striving for a standard that is unattainable, but you wear yourself out trying anyway. One of the messages that can play over and over in our minds is that we have to “be perfect.”

We often fall into the trap of feeling responsible not just for ourselves, but the lives of others, whether our co-workers, friend, children, or spouses. We take on the weight of the world.

It’s often difficult for us to separate our identity from our behavior. We feel if we don’t measure up, it reflects on who we are as individuals.

God’s grace is a gift, in and through His grace, God heals us and brings us freedom to live a new life. Sometimes grace does not come easily to us. We have to work on changing our perspective and our thoughts. We need to humble ourselves to accept God’s grace and extend grace to ourselves when we don’t measure up, knowing that God already sees us as the perfect reflections of Christ that we are, (1 John 3:1-3).

Once we extend grace to ourselves we will be able to extend grace to those around us. We need to cease trying to live up to these distorted beliefs and learn to line our thinking up with the way God views us,

Instead of being so focused on ourselves and our fail, we will be able to extend a helping hand to those around us and be a vessel for God’s grace to those who we come in contact with wherever we go.

Intimidation – The Fear Of People

Breaking free from a. “man fearing” spirit. Learning to live for the Lord because you love Him.

If imagination is the biggest nation in the world today, then intimidation is the second largest. The dictionary defines intimidation as influence or force by fear, verbal or non- verbal, direct or implied. Too many people allow others to control and manipulate them into doing and saying things that they would not normally do. Look at Peter. In a vision the Lord told him not to treat anyone as “unclean” (Act 10). God told him to go to Cornelius’s house and not to worry about what others may say. But in Galatians 2, Pail wrote that Peter was at Antioch, eating and fellowshipping with Gentile believers until people from “church headquarters” came down to see what was going on. When Peter heard they were coming he “separated himself “ from the Gentiles believers. Paul said, in today’s terms, that he “got in his face.” Why? Because Peter had fallen victim to the fear of intimidation.

We all have different opinions and beliefs about many different things. We live our lives according to the moral compass put in us by God called a conscience. The compass points us in the right direction, unless it is influenced by an outside force. The same is true in our lives, no matter how long we’ve been a Christian. There is however a difference in not wanting to offend a “weaker brother “ by not in-gauging in what we would normally do without a problem to our own spirit ie drinking coffee would offered them, so in there presents a changing of who and what we are in our core beliefs to please those who only want to change us to conform to their own convictions. Philippians 2:13 says “work our your own salvation with fear and trembling.” There is only one way to be saved, but once that salvation is come into your life, it’s now your responsible to “work it out.” We all have our own personal convictions. Somethings I’ve done or haven’t done were because of a “man fearing spirit “ or if you will intimidation, intimidation leads to hypocrisy. The living and doing of one thing for certain people, and doing the opposite for others.

God hates hypocrisy! The greater sources of intimidation come from the world and its ungodly system. Such as advertisement making people feel that they will be accepted if they don’t wear this, or eat that, or have this body shape, or drive these cars. Socially they must be in the “in crowd.”

Spiritually the word tells us “Everyone goes to heaven, all religions lead to God which intimidates Christians into not standing up for what it right and for truth. All virtue have been cast off by the world we live in, but one- tolerance. Today if we as believers speak out in the free market place of ideas conserving any issue we are the ones branded as “closed-minded.” We are told that Spiritual matters should stay in the four walks of the church. The world has pushed us in a corner through fear. It’s time to stand up. To stand up for truth, righteousness, and live a life that is free from intimidation. Are you living two lives? One you show on Sunday and the other on Monday through Saturday. Do you feel the need to impress people you don’t like, with money you don’t have? Too many people are bound with a “man-fearing spirit, and it’s time to be set free in Jesus!