“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” Romans 10:9-10
Salvation is a promise. But it doesn’t just come to us without action on our part. You know something I just noticed in this verse. I guess I have always thought belief in our heart must come first before confession. But look here at this verse. This verse says confess then it says believe. Hmm I wonder about this order here.
You know I have often heard that we can speak things into existence and maybe in a way that is what this is saying. If your heart is having trouble believing you speak it there first. You confess that Jesus is Lord then your heart will follow with belief in the fact that God raised Him from the dead. And when we do that when we speak Jesus is Lord and when our heart really believes our salvation is sealed! Our heart justifies us. What does that even mean?
In Jeremiah it says that “the heart is deceitful above all things.” (Jer. 17:9) I wonder if we need to speak our confessions sometime to convince our heart to follow suit. Because our heart will bounce around and not be grounded in the fact. And then when we can know that we know Him and we believe with our whole heart we are justified. I also think when we know Him with our heart our actions will begin to follow Him. And that is what justifies us as well. When we know Him with our whole heart, we want to please Him. Those sins that we struggle with when we were not believers in Him, become less of a struggle because we know Him with our hearts and pleasing Him becomes paramount and we are justified because even though we will still sin, it’s not as easy to brush it off. We feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our hearts which leads to repentance of the sin.
So backtracking here, Confession is the first step to believing with our whole heart. Most of us who may be reading this have probably got this part down. But just in case, let’s never assume. If you are struggling with unbelief in who Jesus is, you start with confessing Him. You claim Him to be your Lord and Savior. Just like the father of the child who was sick in Mark 9. He had heard about this Jesus and he had heard that he could heal so why not take a chance and ask. And when he says to Jesus “if you can do anything”. Look at Jesus response.
“And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.’” Mark 9:23
And then:
“Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief’” Mark 9:24
I love the pure honesty in that verse. When Jesus told the father that he must believe, he claimed his belief that Jesus could heal but he was also asking Jesus to help his heart to believe!
My friends if you are not sure of your salvation, your first step is to confess it. We are promised salvation from our confession. Then believe it in your heart, believe Him who died on the cross for us, and then our hearts are justified with Him.
Also friends if you are not sure of this and want to talk to someone, send me a private message it would be my honor. And if not me, find a close trusted friend or pastor to discuss it with.
Restore 