That they might be saved

“Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.” - Romans 10v1

You will notice that I skipped Romans chapter 9. Why? Because, to be honest, I really don’t understand the whole concept of election and Romans 9 deals almost totally with Israel, salvation, and election. Commentators can’t just skip a chapter in their books and preachers can’t just skip a chapter if they are preaching a series through a book of the Bible, but I can skip it here, because these entries are simply my own reflections.

I am not so sure that even Paul understood all that he wrote in that chapter, but when we get to chapter ten one thing is clear – Paul loves his people and he wants to see them saved.

Look at the verse again- “…my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.” We can almost sense Paul’s heart. Laying all the theology aside he simply wants to see the people of Israel saved.

At our Christmas Day service Tuesday the Lord directed my heart to this passage for a brief closing comment. As our church prepares for 2008 would we be wrong to take this verse and say, “…my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Ireland is that they might be save”? Would it be wrong to put “the United Kingdom,” or “the United States,” or any other nation in the place of “Israel” in that verse?

Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to figure out theology that we forget the kind of heart desire that Paul had. What is our heart desire for 2008? Is it that we figure out the fine points of theology or that we see our people saved?