Beloved People who are NOT Beloved

Romans 9:25 I will call them my people, which are NOT my people.....

Romans 9:25-26 contains an amazing truth that should serve to encourage you even when life seems to be falling apart and nothing appears to be going your way.

Paul describes a group of people who are not blood descendents of Abraham—this would include nearly everyone who is presently reading this posting. (I am not aware of any orthodox Jews reading what I write.) These people are called Gentiles.

According to verse 26 they are not God’s people. They were not born with the special designation of being God’s people. Only Israel has that special designation of being able to claim to be a nation chosen by God and Christians should affirm that claim. Israel has been preserved by God and for God. And in verse 26 these people who are not Israelites get called “children of the living God.”

Don’t miss this point. In verse 25 Paul quotes an Old Testament prophecy by Hosea about a time in the future when God will call people who are NOT His people His people. By the call of God they by faith move from being NOT His people to His people. They are not born children of God—they, by faith, must be born-again when God calls them His people. They, by faith exchange unrighteousness for righteousness. They, by faith, exchange a status of being a created being to becoming a son of the one true living God.

They, by faith, exchange a dependency upon doing right, keeping the law, looking a particular way, etc. to a realization that God grants righteousness through the person and work of Christ and this realization is a belief system given by God when He called them sons of the living God.

Verse 30 sums up how one gets saved in the Bible quite well. Paul writes:

What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.

That was me—a Gentile—a boy following NOT after righteousness. I didn’t have a right standing with God. There wasn’t anything about me that met God’s standard. I continually fell short moment after moment, day after day, week after week until God called.

And I, by faith, exchanged my fifthly rags of righteousness to the perfect righteousness of the King of Kings and Lord of Lord when God declared that I would be one of perhaps millions of sons of God who have no blood relationship to Abraham who are redeemed by the work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary.

If you are a child of the King—He knows your name and He cares for you. No matter what your struggle or heartache you can know that nothing will separate you from the love of God and this trial has been ordained and permitted by God for good. Notice I did not say your good—I just said good because that’s what the Bible says:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

If God has called you His child, the son or daughter of the one true living God, then you may claim this promise even during the most difficult trials of life.

......Now, through Christ Jesus, God calls you "beloved which were NOT beloved" (Romans 9:25).

Nothing can separate the beloved from the love of God--nothing--not even the heartache and trial you are going through. Beloved of God claim that promise today!