THAT THEY MIGHT BE SAVED

I can easily identify with the sentiment that the apostle Paul expresses in the tenth chapter of Romans.  He writes, “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.  For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.  For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” (Romans 10:1-3).

 

As a child, and into my early teens, I was made to attend a church that was void of any spiritual fervor.  The pastor, by his own confession, did not believe in much of the Bible, including the miracles of Jesus and the virgin birth.  The members came to church to show off their new cars and fine clothes, and leave feeling better about themselves because they made the “sacrifice” to come.  Some embraced unbiblical beliefs – such as reincarnation – and yet claimed to be Christians by reason of being members of the church.  Not once in the years that I attended that institution did I ever hear a clear message of salvation through Jesus Christ.  It was more a religion of works than of faith.  They – and I do include myself with them at the time – had a form of godliness, but denied the very power that could make them truly godly (2 Timothy 3:5).

 

Having experienced the life-changing grace of the Lord Jesus, I now feel a burden for those who have been caught up in mere religion, but have not come to a saving knowledge of the Lord.  I know what it is to go about establishing my own righteousness, yet not submit myself to the righteousness of God.  In fact, I have found that it is way too easy, even now, to do what I think the Lord wants me to do rather than what He is asking me to do.  What He asks often cuts very “close to the bone,” and requires faith to believe that He can accomplish in me what I am incapable of doing myself.  It boils down to a matter of yielding to His will, not a system of laws.  “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Romans 10:4).

 

I was treated unfairly one day at work by a co-worker.  I began to grow angry with that individual because what he did was deliberate and self-serving.  I knew that my anger was not “righteous,” but I did not know why I didn’t have a “right” to feel that way.  Being in conflict as a result of my feelings, I got alone and prayed, asking the Lord to make sense of this.  I opened the small pocket New Testament that I carried with me and my eyes fell on these words out of Ephesians 4: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”  I then had a choice before me: either agree with God and yield myself to His standard of righteousness, or resist His will in order to cling to what I thought felt right.  Of course I repented; and when I did, I was overwhelmed with love for this man’s soul who had wronged me.  I no longer felt the anger that before was so impossible to let go.  I was filled with a genuine joy and thankfulness to God for His grace.

 

It is no longer a matter of what we can do, but what He has already done.  When Jesus was dying on the cross, He said, “It is finished.”  He was not referring to His life only, for He was about to inherit eternal life, but He was referring to the work of salvation that was completed by His sacrifice and the shedding of His blood.   Colossians 2:9, 10 tells us, “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.  And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power…”  All that the Father requires of us is fulfilled in Christ, and we are complete in Him.  “For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be glory for ever.  Amen.” (Romans 11:36).

 

What God promises us in His Word, He will perform in us.  All that is required of us is that we believe and submit to His will.  Abraham is called the father of our faith.  His story is a pattern for our walk of faith.  God promised him that his seed would be as the stars of heaven for number, and yet Abraham remained childless until he was about a hundred years old.  God deliberately waited to fulfill the promise until it was physically impossible for Abraham to fulfill it himself.  That was when God worked the miracle of Isaac’s birth. 

 

We, too, have been given promises by God.  Be very sure, though, that we cannot fulfill them in our own efforts.  God Himself will fulfill what He has promised us.  He has promised that we can put on His righteousness, but we find that in ourselves it is physically impossible to accomplish.  This is when we must seek to know God’s will, and, when He reveals it, believe that we can be transformed from what we naturally are, to what He has said we can become.  Just as the worm is transformed into the butterfly, we lowly creatures who are bound to the earth can be set free to fly on the wind!  The worm makes a decision to spin itself into a cocoon and die to what it was in order to become what God wants it to be.  We, too, must die to our past life in order to embrace a new life in Christ.  Jesus said, “...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain of wheat; but if it dies, it brings a good harvest.” (John 12:24 Philips). 

 

“The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved…For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:8, 9, 11).

 

“But they have not all obeyed the gospel.  For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?  So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:16, 17).