Grafted In

“I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.  I have revealed and saved and proclaimed - I, and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God. Yes, and from ancient days I am he. No one can deliver out of my hand.  When I act, who can reverse it?”

          Almighty God declares to all of Israel through the Prophet Isaiah that He is their only savior. Israel, the stiff-necked people that they are, has seen the power of God with their own eyes; yet their faith still wavers whenever things don’t go in their favor. God knows this about them and still loves them. He’s telling them that they are safe in the hollow of His mighty hand and that what He does is irreversible. How does this relate to believers today? We aren’t Israel? Ah, true enough, however, in Romans 11:17 we are told "If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root." ‘Some of the branches’ represents Israel. The ‘wild olive shoot’ is the non-Jew or gentile. The ‘olive root’ is God. Because Israel rejected Christ as their Messiah, the gentiles were/are allowed by God to be grafted into His plan of salvation. That means all the benefits and blessings that were intended solely for Israel can and will be experienced by any and all who call on the name of God for the purpose of the forgiveness of sins. 

          As believers today we can know that God is our savior. He has saved us from our sins, and essentially, from ourselves because we can be our own worst enemy. We see the evidence of God all around us and yet at times still act as if we are unaware of His existence. We are children of Almighty God, the One true God. He cleansed us from all our ungodly deeds and yet we still look for something more as if it could be found. Just as the Jews, we have nowhere else to turn. Jesus Christ is the one and only savior of man. It is paramount that we embrace that fact and cling to Him for our own righteousness sake. We are living within the framework of God’s grace. His undeserved favor is ours. Look at it this way: if Israel had never rejected Christ as their Messiah, we would never have been invited in. But they did and we can. Don’t waste time living for yourself. Surrender to God.

Richard Keller

Bread of Life Ministries