“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”Romans 10:9 NKJV
Jesus is Lord
No matter how good you are, how hard you try, or how decent of a person you attempt to be, when it comes to following Christ, you can’t earn your way to God. You can’t do enough good things to tip the scales in your favor. You can’t buy, win, impress, or manipulate your way into salvation.
But Jesus has already purchased your freedom on a cross and offered it to you as a gift. And you have one job, as Paul describes in his letter to the Romans…
“If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”Romans 10:9 NIV
Many people believe that Jesus was a real, historical person. Many people believe that Jesus was a genuinely good man. But the Bible says that even the demons believe there’s only one God, and shudder (James 2:19).
It's more than knowing in your head—it's believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth.
Minutes before their deaths, two criminals hung next to Jesus on the cross. One of the criminals mocked Him, but the other one trusted in Him. Jesus told the one who trusted Him that he would soon be in Heaven. He received grace.
You see, we’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s holy standard. We all need His grace, but we haven’t all received His grace.
So are you trying to be good enough for God? The bad news is, you can’t. You can’t ever be good enough on your own. But the great news is, Jesus has already made a way. However, you can’t simply know that He was a real person or think that some of His teachings were nice.
The most important question remains: Will you make Him the Lord of your life?
Reflection: Have you made Jesus the Lord of your life? Confess, believe, and accept His free gift!
Share your faith: Don’t keep your faith to yourself. Let others know that Jesus can save them too.
Prayer: Jesus, I believe that You are the true Savior of the world. You died an innocent death—in my place, for my sins—and our Heavenly Father raised You from the dead. You are the Lord of all lords and the King of all kings, and I surrender my life to You. You alone can save me, and You alone are worth following. So please take my life, and give me Yours. Thank You for never giving up on me. Amen!
Note after sharing the devotional: one question that has come up for me is how to share the Gospel, and with whom, and where and when, etc. Now, to be clear, I’ve not had a shortage of answers as to how. The formula, boiled down, has been: 1.) pray about it, asking God to reveal who to speak to, and 2.) tell whoever God reveals. So I’ve found I need to revise my questions. The thing is, my how question has turned into a “please reveal the right moment by having the conversation open up for it.” I recently had another chance to share it with my dad on a phone call. I now forget what prompted it, but I shared the following verse:
“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.”Psalms 139:14 NKJV
The “fearfully and wonderfully made” line got him. I’m sure he’s heard it before, but he reacted as if he was hearing it for the first time. It clearly moved him. In that same conversation, I also mentioned about receiving Jesus Christ as the Lord of one’s life, and that that’s what really matters. So part of the answer lies in trusting God to provide that opportunity.
At work, however, it’s a different story. There’s just simply no opportunity to share about it. And even in the rare down moments when a conversation with a client or colleague turns away from the professional (and even those are always fleeting), the conversations don’t lend themselves to faith discussions. The closest I came one time was with a plant supervisor with whom I’d supported quite a few times on various projects who had shared about using his time off (he had just gotten back to work). When asked about how his time off was, he responded that he was on a musical production that his church had put on. Just the way he was talking about it, it sounded like he could be saved, but due to it being a work call he didn’t go too deep into it. I said what I could to convey my happiness for him regarding the production. But the window wasn’t open long.
Two options I have been able to choose have involved spreading the Gospel through music writing and literary writing. As of now I have two websites for each, this page as well as my Bandcamp site. It’s a start. But I’ll keep listening for the Holy Spirit’s wisdom on this. I need it. And I need Him.