Salvation is not difficult, but simple. Salvation is not inaccessible, but readily available. It is as near as your mouth & your heart. If you would believe in Jesus with your whole heart, and confess Him with your mouth, you will be saved.
Your heart has been created with a truly amazing capability. Your heart has been given the capacity to believe, and most wonderfully, to believe in God. It is in the heart that faith springs up, dwells, and works (Acts 15:9).
It is unbelief in the heart that draws men away from God (Hebrews 3:12). It is into the heart that God sends the Spirit of His Son (Galatians 4:6) and it is in the believing heart that Christ Himself dwells (Ephesians 3:17).
You need a heart of faith because the place of faith is the heart. How can you have a believing heart? How can your heart be made true and pure?
In our text we have God’s gracious offer of salvation in Christ and the provision of righteousness by faith in His word. God speaks into your heart because your heart is not only the center of your physical-psychological life, but also the very center of your spiritual life.
God opens your heart to speak faith into your heart by His written Word. God builds and molds and shapes faith within the heart of men and women through our receiving, believing and obeying the word of God.
Let me repeat this again because it is that important – Now God’s Word to us is not distant, but always nearby. Salvation is not difficult, but simple. Salvation is not inaccessible, but readily available.
It is as near as your own mouth and your heart. If you would believe in Jesus with your heart, and confess Him with your mouth, you will be saved. And once the Lord Jesus is in your heart you have His righteousness reigning/abiding in your heart also. Let this sink into your souls.
Romans 10:6-9 Disciples’ Literal New Testament
6 But the righteousness of faith speaks[a] as follows: “Do not say in your heart, “Who will go up into heaven?”, that is, to bring[b] Christ down, 7 or “who will go down into the abyss?”, that is, to bring[c] Christ up from the dead. 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”, that is, the word of [d] faith which we are proclaiming, 9 that[e] if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.
What an amazing thing to know in your inner most being that you are saved. Through faith in Jesus, your inner man is 100% sealed, sanctified, redeemed.
This transformation into a new creation in Christ happened in your born-again spirit. There was a change on the inside of you when you put your 100% trust into Jesus as your Savior.
Unlike relying on the Law to bring you into right relationship with God, you trusted in Him to provide for you the righteousness that comes by faith alone. This righteousness changes the way we look at the world. No longer do we have to look to heaven or ascend into the deep to find God, because the word of faith proclaims that He is in our mouths, in our hearts and very near all the time.
In our carnal nature it is impossible to live in fellowship with the Lord. This is why trying to be good enough on our own merit will never work.
We set ourselves up for failure if we try to live this way. God understood this and this is why he never intended for us to work for our salvation.
Sin had destroyed us, and the Law helped us to recognize it.
Isaiah said, “The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so, his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him” (Isaiah 59:15-16).
Even God looked around for one that could represent mankind on his behalf to save the world from themselves but there was no one because sin has destroyed us. So, Isaiah said, his own right arm (Jesus) worked salvation for us, and it was His righteousness that sustained him so he could defeat sin once for all. In the same way He broke the power of sin over us.
Through faith in Jesus, we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness, held under the power of sin and death, into the kingdom of his dear son (Colossians 1:13).
We are free from the bondage that sin held us in and born again with a new spirit inside us. We are a completely different being than we once were (II Corinthians 5:17).
That is why we do not have to look for God, instead we simply know that his presence is always with us, His word in is our mouths, and His righteousness and precepts are written on our hearts.
It makes quite a difference in how we live when we understand this truth.
This becomes a reality when we get a revelation of who we are in the spirit.
When we see ourselves as God sees us, we live like who we are instead of living by what we see. This is why God gave us the Holy Spirit, so he could lead us into all truth (John 14:26, John 16:13).
He didn’t want us to have to rely on the physical aspect of life to interpret these things. Instead, he wanted us to know and experience him in a personal way. Jesus told the women at the well in John 4, that “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
God gave us His Spirit so that we could commune with him spirit to spirit bypassing the natural realm. We do not have to have someone teach us these things because God has made them real inside us.
An amazing thing was what the prophets foretold concerning the New Covenant through Christ Jesus,
Jeremiah said,
“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34, Hebrews 8:10-12).
This is the word of faith. God is written himself on our hearts; we don’t need to look anywhere else for him. He dwells inside us, so close that he is in our minds, our hearts and overflowing from our lips.
Paul was quoting from Deuteronomy 30 in today’s passage. This passage immediately follows the law, but this chapter shows that it is man’s heart that God wants, this was always His intent.
The chapter ends with an amazing call to his children that still applies to us today,
“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” ( Deuteronomy 30:19-20 ).
God said, choose life and you will live. We know that life only comes through Jesus. He is the way to the Father. Through him, he gives us the capability to love the Lord, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. He is our life, and he incredibly blesses us as we walk with him.
Today, I encourage you to choose life so that you may also live. I am so thankful that God has provided a way for us to remain in fellowship with him at all times.
I am blessed to know that his faithful love and his faithful word flows out of me and that I am never without him. This is the word of faith that I proclaim today, may you be blessed by this revelation of God’s wonderful plan for you, Amen!
In the name of the God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
O God may the faith within us get out, onto our lips, into our feet and hands, through our hearts.
May what we sing and pray here in this place, get past our inhibitions and into our actions this week.
May the passion for your Gospel burn within our hearts, so that we cannot be silent in the face of deception or injustice.
If old-fashioned ways of sharing faith do not ring true to us, then let us persist until we find ways to tell our story that reveal Your presence in our lives.
Help us, God, please help us to just get it out, not arrogantly, but as our humble confession of what we believe. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 