May 24

“…for ye were the fewest of all people:” Deuteronomy 7:7

It is said that there is ‘strength in number’. This usually means that the more numerous a group of people, or a nation, the more powerful, noticeable or resourceful it may be. When God selected Israel to be His people and to be a nation that would proclaim His principles and be an example of His Holiness, there were already many large and powerful nations, which could have commandeered His attention. Before Israel was a nation, God called one man, who through faith, became the father of the faithful whom God would make His. Abraham, his family and the families that would follow, remained a relatively small number of people among the many and larger nations of the world that surrounded them, for quite some time. By His choice, Yahwah emphasised that His motivation was not how impressive and numerous they were as a people, or what resources they had accumulated by their own ability, for none of those things mattered to Him. God showed that His choice of Israel was based on His love, and His faithfulness to the promises He had made to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God keeps His promises.  Predicated upon His unchanging faithfulness, constant love and inimitable longsuffering, Israel survived, and remained His people. The same can be said of the church today. Those same qualities which God displayed with them, He continues to demonstrate to us. Yahwah is unchanging; He is the same yesterday, today and forever. His laws and ways are established from everlasting, and His purposes are determined from eternity. Like the Hebrews, the church also has grown. Yet though it may number many more followers than just the early disciples, by comparison to the unsaved - the Christless masses of the world, the term used by Jesus calling the apostles a ‘little flock’, is still applicable to the church today! We are encouraged therefore, by the fact that God’s love and not our numbers, defines our calling. We are sustained with the knowledge that it is not by our works and ability, but by His love, grace and power that our salvation is provided. We are strengthened in the conviction that He, who has elected the church, will fulfil the promises He has made, and that if we remain faithful till the end, we will live forever, because ‘he is faithful that promised’!

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion