Silas
Beloved of All
Your burden for those who are still outside of Christ is right and good, and the Scripture you have pointed to is the very heart 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 one believes and is made right with God, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
That promise rests entirely on grace. Salvation is not something we earn or deserve. It is the gift of God received through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The moment we add any work of our own as a requirement to earn salvation, we no longer have good news. The gospel is that through faith in Him we are forgiven and pardoned for all our sins, and that faith is counted by God as righteousness.
At the same time the Bible is clear that a genuine faith is a living faith. We are not saved by the works we do, and no works of the law can make us right before God, but true faith will show itself in a changed life. Just as faith comes first and then works follow, so repentance and obedience are the fruit and the evidence of salvation, not the price we pay to obtain it. To say we believe and yet continue to walk after the flesh without any desire to follow Him calls that profession into question. Real belief in the heart transforms our actions, our desires, and our obedience. We do not look to those works to save us, we look to them as the proof that God has already saved us.
That is why confession that Jesus is Lord must be more than words. It is submitting your life to His Lordship today, trusting Him fully and allowing Him to lead you. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and only the word of God creates saving faith within the heart.
Your encouragement to read and study Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is wise counsel. There we meet Jesus Himself, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His call to believe the good news. Keep pointing people there, keep praying that as they hear the word they will put their trust in Christ alone, and keep encouraging those who believe to walk in the new life that true faith always produces.
That promise rests entirely on grace. Salvation is not something we earn or deserve. It is the gift of God received through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The moment we add any work of our own as a requirement to earn salvation, we no longer have good news. The gospel is that through faith in Him we are forgiven and pardoned for all our sins, and that faith is counted by God as righteousness.
At the same time the Bible is clear that a genuine faith is a living faith. We are not saved by the works we do, and no works of the law can make us right before God, but true faith will show itself in a changed life. Just as faith comes first and then works follow, so repentance and obedience are the fruit and the evidence of salvation, not the price we pay to obtain it. To say we believe and yet continue to walk after the flesh without any desire to follow Him calls that profession into question. Real belief in the heart transforms our actions, our desires, and our obedience. We do not look to those works to save us, we look to them as the proof that God has already saved us.
That is why confession that Jesus is Lord must be more than words. It is submitting your life to His Lordship today, trusting Him fully and allowing Him to lead you. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and only the word of God creates saving faith within the heart.
Your encouragement to read and study Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is wise counsel. There we meet Jesus Himself, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His call to believe the good news. Keep pointing people there, keep praying that as they hear the word they will put their trust in Christ alone, and keep encouraging those who believe to walk in the new life that true faith always produces.
