Thursday, March 29: Romans 11- Don't get cocky & pray for all.

Theologically much has been written about the place of Israel in the heart of God now that Jesus has come and the Gentiles are invited into God's family. My personal devotions will not solve these issues. Instead they sustain me day after day as a Christ follower.

Reading this chapter two three word statements seemed to resound from the throne of grace. Don't get cocky. Pray for all.

They issued forth most clearly from verses 22-24:

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

Don't get cocky… but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. Israel got cocky, uppity. God would always come through, no matter how faithlessly they lived. But one thing we have heard over and over again in Romans is that we live by faith not by works. And we Gentile believers are just as susceptible to slipping into a works understanding as our Jewish forbearers were. God brought this to my attention two days ago and He is reminding me again with an added warning that if God cut off Israel for lack of faith He could do that to us as well. Continue in his kindness…  in other words continue in faith, believe Jesus and follow Him.

Pray for all… how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree! Pray with Paul that all Israel is saved. That God's first family is drawn back to Him even as Gentiles from around the world are coming to Him. There is lots of room in God's house, let's pray it is filled up!!! Jews and Gentiles. Males and females. Young and old. Slave and free. Capitalist and socialists. White and black and yellow and red…. Pray that all people everywhere will find their way home to the Lord.

Oh, Lord, may it be so… Alleluia. Amen.