Living the Journey

Here is the tenth of twelve verses to be memorized by April 23rd as part of The Challenge II!

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“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. ” – Romans 10:9

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The act of speaking – or confessing – out loud is essential. Notice how it says “confess with thy mouth” and not just in your heart and mind. Why would this be so? For one thing, it humbles you. For instance…when we offend God isn’t it much easier to say “Oh God, please forgive me,” then it is to go to a person and tell them what you did and ask them to forgive you? It shouldn’t be this way! It should be harder to go before a Holy God – the Creator, then mere man – the creation. We are more concerned for the approval of man then we are in pleasing God. Thus in reality, we have made man an idol. Confession is also made with the mouth to proclaim the wonderful works of God; for our mouth was created by God for the purpose of bringing glory and honor to His name. If a man confesses faith in Jesus, acknowledging his sinful state, Christ in turn will regard him as innocent of all charges and qualify him for eternal life.

Believing in our heart is also a vital and very important part. We must believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, thus showing that He has accepted the Atonement, which is the righteousness of Christ imputed to any man who believes through faith. 

Let me end with these thoughts of Matthew Henry:

“Justification by faith lays the foundation of our title to salvation; but by confession we build upon that foundation, and come at last to the full possession of that to which we were entitled. So that we have here a brief summery of the terms of salvation, and they are very reasonable; in short this, that we must devote, dedicate, and give up to God our soul and our body – our souls in believing with the heart, and our bodies with confessing with the mouth. This do, and thou shalt live.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Soulwinning Challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.