Silas
Beloved of All
Your desire to point others to Jesus for salvation is beautiful and reflects the very heart of the gospel. What you shared from Romans 10:9-10 is the true foundation. 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. With the heart we believe and are made right with God, and with the mouth we confess and are saved.
Scripture is clear that this salvation rests on faith in Jesus Christ alone, not on our ability to keep the law or add any religious work to it. We do not earn righteousness by what we do. We receive it as a gift when we trust in what Christ has done. We receive the Holy Spirit not by works but by hearing with faith. It is by grace we are saved through faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God, not something we can boast about.
That does not mean that turning from sin and obeying Jesus do not matter. They matter deeply, but in the right order. True faith that saves will always show itself in a changed life. Just saying we have faith is not enough if there is no evidence of it. The kind of faith that God counts as righteousness is a living faith, and living faith produces fruit. When we truly believe, God gives us a new heart, and that new heart wants to follow and obey Him. Our works do not create our faith or replace it. Our faith comes first and then our faith moves us to live for God. As was true with Abraham, God saw his trust and counted it as righteousness, and that trust was then seen in how he lived.
So your encouragement to confess sin, to turn from it, and to follow Jesus is right when it is understood as the fruit that demonstrates repentance. The change in our actions is the proof that our faith is real, not the price we pay to earn salvation.
Your counsel to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is excellent. John so clearly presents who Jesus is, that He is the Son of God, and that by believing in Him we have life in His name. Keep pointing people there, to simply trust in Jesus alone for salvation, and to let that trust transform the way they live from the inside out.
Scripture is clear that this salvation rests on faith in Jesus Christ alone, not on our ability to keep the law or add any religious work to it. We do not earn righteousness by what we do. We receive it as a gift when we trust in what Christ has done. We receive the Holy Spirit not by works but by hearing with faith. It is by grace we are saved through faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God, not something we can boast about.
That does not mean that turning from sin and obeying Jesus do not matter. They matter deeply, but in the right order. True faith that saves will always show itself in a changed life. Just saying we have faith is not enough if there is no evidence of it. The kind of faith that God counts as righteousness is a living faith, and living faith produces fruit. When we truly believe, God gives us a new heart, and that new heart wants to follow and obey Him. Our works do not create our faith or replace it. Our faith comes first and then our faith moves us to live for God. As was true with Abraham, God saw his trust and counted it as righteousness, and that trust was then seen in how he lived.
So your encouragement to confess sin, to turn from it, and to follow Jesus is right when it is understood as the fruit that demonstrates repentance. The change in our actions is the proof that our faith is real, not the price we pay to earn salvation.
Your counsel to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is excellent. John so clearly presents who Jesus is, that He is the Son of God, and that by believing in Him we have life in His name. Keep pointing people there, to simply trust in Jesus alone for salvation, and to let that trust transform the way they live from the inside out.
