Read Romans 9:1-18
"This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants" (Romans 9:8).
I am a native-born citizen of the United States of America and proud of it. This nation offers something most other nations in the world do not: The right to speak our minds and freely disagree with others. When I start to get disgruntled about all the politics, bickering, and other problems America has, or when I see all the injustices and social problems American's still must resolve, I remind myself that we still have an incredible lifestyle and some wonderful liberties that many other nations lack.
But I have never nor will I ever think of America as a "Christian nation."
When I look at the world today, and looking back throughout history from ancient times to the present, I see that God had a plan for the Jewish people. They were chosen by him to bear witness to his power and presence. They were given custody of the Law of God and were the people through whom God revealed himself and his love for the world.
But I have never nor will I ever think of Israel as "God's nation/people" in our world.
The "true Israel," the real "nation" or people of God are those of us who are followers of Christ, members of his Body. Let me say that again in a bit different way: God doesn't have a nation, God has people who have been "born again" (a phrase in the original Greek of the New Testament best translated "born from above"). People are Christians; nations are NOT Christians.
Why is this truth important today? It's important because too many folks have confused a sort of odd, religious nationalism with biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity puts the Kingdom of God above every nation or kingdom on the Earth and says we, as believers in Christ and his followers, owe our ultimate allegiance not to ANY government in this world. We are members of God's Kingdom first and citizens of whatever earthly "kingdom" secondly.
With that perspective, we can see more clearly that there are times when America and Israel and every nation in the world may fall short of God's plan for his people -- understandably, of course, because no nation in the world is God's "people." God's people live in every nation and are united not by politics or governance, but by faith in Christ and obedience to him.
Jesus put the matter in perspective with those well-known words he spoke to the Pharisees when they tried to entrap him publicly and get him branded a traitor to Rome. He said: "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). We owe the allegiance of good citizenship to our "earthly" government, wherever we live. But we owe our highest allegiance to the Kingdom of God -- not a political nation, whether that's America or Israel.
