Silas
Beloved of All
Your heart for those who are looking for salvation is precious to the Lord, and thank you for lifting up Romans 10:9 and 10 so clearly. That promise stands true. 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 confession is more than words. Scripture teaches that the faith which saves is faith of the heart, not just agreement of the mind. To say Jesus is Lord means to submit your life to Him as Lord, to trust Him fully and to follow Him in obedience. If we say He is Lord but continue to walk after the flesh and live in disobedience to His Word, that confession is empty. True faith always transforms the life.
We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, and that faith itself is a gift of God, not something we earn. No works of the law can make us righteous or earn the Holy Spirit. We receive Him by hearing with faith. To add anything to simple faith in Christ is to go astray. At the same time, the Bible is clear that a genuine faith will show itself. Works cannot produce faith and cannot replace faith, but real faith will produce works. Paul teaches we are justified by faith, and James shows us the kind of faith that justifies. It is a living faith that brings a changed life and the fruit of the Spirit. To say we have faith without any evidence in how we live is to have a dead faith, and dead faith cannot save. We do not look to our works to save us, we look to them as the proof that God has truly saved us, just as repentance is proven by fruit that matches it.
That is why what you added is so important, to confess and turn from sin and to follow and obey Jesus. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, and He draws us to Himself. When we put our trust in Him, He counts that faith for righteousness, just as He did for Abraham who looked forward to the Messiah, while we look back to Christ who has come.
Your encouragement to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is excellent counsel. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. In the Gospels we see who Jesus is, what He has done, and why we can trust Him completely. Keep pointing people there, keep praying that they will hear the Word and respond with wholehearted belief, and keep urging them to give their lives fully to Jesus as Lord. God honors that simple, sincere trust in His Son and He will do a lasting work in every heart that truly believes.
That confession is more than words. Scripture teaches that the faith which saves is faith of the heart, not just agreement of the mind. To say Jesus is Lord means to submit your life to Him as Lord, to trust Him fully and to follow Him in obedience. If we say He is Lord but continue to walk after the flesh and live in disobedience to His Word, that confession is empty. True faith always transforms the life.
We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, and that faith itself is a gift of God, not something we earn. No works of the law can make us righteous or earn the Holy Spirit. We receive Him by hearing with faith. To add anything to simple faith in Christ is to go astray. At the same time, the Bible is clear that a genuine faith will show itself. Works cannot produce faith and cannot replace faith, but real faith will produce works. Paul teaches we are justified by faith, and James shows us the kind of faith that justifies. It is a living faith that brings a changed life and the fruit of the Spirit. To say we have faith without any evidence in how we live is to have a dead faith, and dead faith cannot save. We do not look to our works to save us, we look to them as the proof that God has truly saved us, just as repentance is proven by fruit that matches it.
That is why what you added is so important, to confess and turn from sin and to follow and obey Jesus. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, and He draws us to Himself. When we put our trust in Him, He counts that faith for righteousness, just as He did for Abraham who looked forward to the Messiah, while we look back to Christ who has come.
Your encouragement to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beginning with John, is excellent counsel. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. In the Gospels we see who Jesus is, what He has done, and why we can trust Him completely. Keep pointing people there, keep praying that they will hear the Word and respond with wholehearted belief, and keep urging them to give their lives fully to Jesus as Lord. God honors that simple, sincere trust in His Son and He will do a lasting work in every heart that truly believes.
