God’s Sovereign ChoiceMy Understanding: As I began to prayerfully read this passage of scripture, I immediately identified with Paul, with his heart for his people, and the anguish of heart he was feeling for them. So, when I began to take notes on this passage of scripture, it came out as a paraphrase of what Paul said only as applied to my life and my world in 2011:
1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring…
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
5 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: “The man who does these things will live by them.” 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for the salvation of my family members and the people of my own nation. We have been so blessed by God with freedom to practice our faith openly and publicly. As well, we have been blessed by God with an overabundance of Bibles of many translations, Bible literature and resource materials, the preaching and teaching of the word, church structures where the gospel, or at least a semblance of the gospel, is preached; blessed with Christian radio and TV programs, gospel music, et al. Our nation, over the years, has probably sent out millions of missionaries to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to foreign lands. We have a rich Christian heritage. Yet, not all have believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and of those who have believed, not all are walking in faith and obedience to our Lord, forsaking the world and its passions and desires.
Yet, God’s word did not fail just because people did not believe or because they do not practice what they say they believe. For not all who have been raised in homes where there was a strong Christian influence, or who attended a Christian church from infanthood, or were baptized in the church, or who had the gospel so readily available to them all their natural lives are Christian. Just because you were born in the USA, which has had a previous reputation of being a Christian nation, and just because you went to a Christian church or school or you work for a Christian-based company or you tithe to the church or work in some type of Christian ministry, or your parents or grandparents were Christians, that does not make you a Christian. Being a Christian is not a religion you practice or just a set of rules to live by. Being a Christian is not just about living a moral life and doing good deeds of kindness towards others. No, being a Christian means you have repented of your sins and you have made a conscious decision of heart and mind to follow Jesus Christ in obedience and to make him the Lord and Savior of your life.
My heart’s desire and prayer to God for my family members and the people of my nation, as well as the people of the world, is that they would be saved. Many people are zealous for God but their zeal is not based on knowledge – not based on right knowledge about God’s way of salvation. Many do good things, thinking they are doing them for God and thus God should be pleased with them. Yet, they do not know the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ, and instead, they seek to establish their own righteousness in not submitting themselves to God’s righteousness for their lives.
I believe this lack of knowledge about God’s way of salvation can apply to both the believer and the non-believer, but who, at least intellectually or religiously have a belief that there is a supreme power, and they do feel as though their actions are for God and are thus pleasing to him, as Paul believed when he was persecuting and killing Christians, though perhaps not to that extreme, I hope. Yet, God is not interested in our own self-efforts to try to please him and/or to serve him with our own good works.
When we have fully comprehended God’s righteous requirements for salvation, and we submit ourselves to those requirements, we shift from those who work for God from our own self-will as to what we want to do for God to becoming living sacrifices to God on his altar, holy and pleasing to him, no longer conformed to the pattern of this world, but daily being transformed in the renewing of our minds so that we prove by our lives what is God’s good, pleasing and perfect will for us.
In other words, what God requires of us and what is pleasing to him is when we turn from our sins and we turn to walk in humble obedience to our Lord Jesus, and we find out what pleases the Lord, what he desires of us, and we submit and surrender our wills to his will for our lives in complete surrender, and we obey him.
This passage of scripture states that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and we believe in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead, we will be saved. That sounds rather simplistic until we understand what this really means. First of all, we must open our mouths and we must openly and out loud confess that Jesus Christ is our Lord, yet our confession is not to just say the words “Jesus is Lord,” but it means what comes out of our mouths should be a confession to everyone whether or not Jesus is really the master of our lives, though this does not mean we will never fail in what we say. I believe this is also a confession as to the deity of Jesus Christ, i.e. that he is The Lord God. This also means that we will tell others about Jesus Christ, too, and that we will share with them the importance of how Jesus can be the Lord (master) of their hearts and lives, as well as to tell them how they can have Jesus as their Lord and master.
The other part of this verse says that we must also believe in heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. Again, on the surface this appears rather simplistic, yet when we understand its full implications we realize there is a whole lot more to this statement. If we confess that Jesus is Lord, i.e. the Lord God and we know that he was crucified on a cross, so we know he died, to believe in hearts that he was risen means that we believe he not only is alive and thus we serve a living God, not a dead one, but it means that we believe that he conquered hell, Satan, death and sin when he rose triumphantly from the grave, so he is our risen Lord, he is alive, and he conquered all that stands against us so that we can go free, not only from the ultimate penalty of sin, i.e. eternal punishment in hell, but that he set us free so that we can live in victory over sin and it no longer is our master because Christ Jesus and his righteousness now rules our hearts and lives.
The Ransom / An Original Work / September 8, 2011
Jesus paid the ransom, so we’d be forgiven;
Purified from our sin, so we’d be set free.
Crucified on a tree; took on him our sin.
Buried our sin with Him; rose in victory.
Jesus calls us to Him; asks that we flee from sin;
Obey His commandments; live eternally.
God our Father loves us, which is why He gave us
His Son to die for us on a cruel tree.
God created us to walk in fellowship
With Him, daily trusting in His righteousness.
He has a plan for us to abide in His grace;
Be transformed in our hearts; live for him always.
Won’t you trust in Jesus? Be your Lord and Master?
He wants to forgive you; give you victory
Over sin and yourself; Jesus set you free.
Daily walking with Him, live victoriously.
Invite Him in your heart. He’ll give you a new start.
Your old life behind you, a new creature be.
Song lyrics and sheet music at:
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs2/home/songs/the-ransom
Song on video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8itooCN1I3k
http://www.godcares.tv/video/1175/The-Ransom
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