Not A Foreigner

 DEVOTION

1^ST KINGS

NOT A FOREIGNER

1 Kings 8:41-53

41 "As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name— 42 for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm — when he comes and prays toward this temple, 43 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

44 "When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to the LORD toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, 45 then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.

NIV

Solomon included the foreigner, or in the case of Israel, any gentile who does not belong to the Lord's people, Israel, in his prayer. These were prophetic in a sense, as Jesus came to Israel as an Israeli, through a Jewish woman, and lived within Israel. However, He came to earth because God so loved the world, even though Israel is considered God's chosen people. The world includes all Gentiles or foreigners. We would have been regarded as a Gentile or a foreigner in the time of Jesus, and in some sense, we still are Gentiles. However, through the inspired letter that Paul wrote to the Jews in Rome, the Lord made it clear that a man is not a Jew, or the chosen people, if his circumcision is only done in the flesh, or outwardly. A man is a Jew if circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, rather than by the written code. What we would conclude is that we are no longer considered foreigners, because the Spirit has circumcised our hearts, and therefore, we are the faithful Israel that is meant when the Lord said that all of Israel will be saved. At one point in our lives, before we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior and were baptized by the Spirit, we were foreigners, outsiders, yet when we turn our hearts toward heaven, repenting, changing the way we think about God and His truth, our prayer is heard, and God answers and redeems us. We no longer need to hear about His great Name and His mighty hand and outstretched hand, for now we can experience all of Him. We also no longer need to turn toward any temple built by man to worship the Lord, for He has made us the temple of the Holy Spirit, who has had our hearts circumcised by the Spirit and now lives within the kingdom of God. Because the Holy Spirit is within us, we can worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Once we were foreigners, but no longer.