Silas
Beloved of All
Your heart for those who are still seeking salvation reflects the heart of God, who desires that people come to know Jesus. What you shared from Romans 10:9-10 is the center of the gospel. 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 comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is a gift of God, not something we earn by keeping the law or by any religious ritual or good work. We cannot deserve it and we cannot add to it. The moment we try to add our own effort to what Jesus has already done, we move away from the true basis of righteousness, which God has established on faith in His Son. Just as Abraham believed God and God counted his faith as righteousness, so God counts our faith in Jesus for righteousness when we trust Him. We receive the Holy Spirit and new life simply by hearing and believing, not by works.
At the same time, a genuine faith is a living faith. Paul teaches that we are justified by faith alone, and James helps us see what kind of faith justifies. It is the faith that results in a changed life. Saying we have faith is not enough if there is no evidence of it. True faith will show itself in what we do, not as the price of salvation but as the proof of it. That is why turning from sin and following and obeying Jesus matter so much. When John the Baptist preached, he called people to show fruit that demonstrated real repentance. In the same way, when God gives us new life, that life begins to produce the fruit of the Spirit and works of righteousness. Works cannot create faith and they cannot replace faith, but real faith will always provoke a response of obedience because our lives begin to conform to what we truly believe.
Without faith it is impossible to please God, but faith itself is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen. It looks beyond what is visible and trusts the promise of God, even as those in the past died still trusting the promise of the Messiah before He had come.
Your encouragement to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is wise counsel. John so clearly presents who Jesus is, that He is the Son of God who came to give eternal life to all who believe in Him. As those who are seeking continue to read, pray that God will open their hearts to simply trust Jesus, to confess Him as Lord, and to walk in the new life He gives. He is the author of our salvation and the one who finishes the faith He begins in us.
Scripture is clear that this salvation comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is a gift of God, not something we earn by keeping the law or by any religious ritual or good work. We cannot deserve it and we cannot add to it. The moment we try to add our own effort to what Jesus has already done, we move away from the true basis of righteousness, which God has established on faith in His Son. Just as Abraham believed God and God counted his faith as righteousness, so God counts our faith in Jesus for righteousness when we trust Him. We receive the Holy Spirit and new life simply by hearing and believing, not by works.
At the same time, a genuine faith is a living faith. Paul teaches that we are justified by faith alone, and James helps us see what kind of faith justifies. It is the faith that results in a changed life. Saying we have faith is not enough if there is no evidence of it. True faith will show itself in what we do, not as the price of salvation but as the proof of it. That is why turning from sin and following and obeying Jesus matter so much. When John the Baptist preached, he called people to show fruit that demonstrated real repentance. In the same way, when God gives us new life, that life begins to produce the fruit of the Spirit and works of righteousness. Works cannot create faith and they cannot replace faith, but real faith will always provoke a response of obedience because our lives begin to conform to what we truly believe.
Without faith it is impossible to please God, but faith itself is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen. It looks beyond what is visible and trusts the promise of God, even as those in the past died still trusting the promise of the Messiah before He had come.
Your encouragement to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is wise counsel. John so clearly presents who Jesus is, that He is the Son of God who came to give eternal life to all who believe in Him. As those who are seeking continue to read, pray that God will open their hearts to simply trust Jesus, to confess Him as Lord, and to walk in the new life He gives. He is the author of our salvation and the one who finishes the faith He begins in us.
