Happy Easter Weekend, and a wonderful snippet of Scripture was in my reading this morning. There are innumerable wonders in the book of Romans and these are particularly prescient for this weekend.
So let’s pray:
Father I thank You for giving me this beautiful collection of verses to read, and Jesus I thank You for insisting these are what we’d write about today and answering both questions I posed this morning. I expect this is going to be fun and hope that it will be revelatory and worth every minute it takes to write and every second it takes to read. Write it for me, Lord. In Your Name I pray. Amen.
Romans 10 NIV and only starting at 8 because it’s the beginning of the sentence. So let’s stroll through these verses and see what we can find.
Romans 10:8a But what does it (the Righteousness that is by faith) say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”
The Word is near you, He will speak in your heart and through your mouth if you let Him.
Romans 10:8b that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim:
The message concerning faith that we proclaim is the Word is near you, believe it. Jesus came, He died, He Lives and He will come again.
Romans 10:9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,”
and
Believe in your Heart
that God raised Him from the dead
I love words. Did you see that both Proclaim and Declare are in these two verses? Let’s take a second and distinguish between the two because they’re both so very helpful.
Proclaim is to announce, to preach, to herald.
It’s what your pastor does on Sunday.
Declare is to make known, to state emphatically.
You can think of it as speaking out-loud.
Tip: declare Scripture out loud. Many many verses will help you if you speak them out loud. Declare your faith too.
Romans 10:10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Sometimes I find the word Justified as a let down. But I know it’s not, to be justified is to be set free, declared innocent. When your faith reaches your heart, you will know you have been set free, then you can thank Him, adore Him, praise Him. And what your heart believes is what your mouth will speak. Jesus spoke on this…let’s go look.
Matthew 12:34 “You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
Matthew 15:11 “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
Yikes? Did that just prick you? Pray. Jesus can change the way you speak. It’s all in what you think about. Change your thoughts, ask Him to transform your thoughts. (Romans 12:2) Saturate your mind in Scripture… Meditate on Scripture. Because…
Romans 10:11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
Romans 10:12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,
We could easily reword this to say There is no difference between me and you, us and the people across the world. We are all the same. All given the same chance to believe. Believe. Yet someone has to tell them, somehow they have to hear the gospel to get the chance to believe it.
Romans 10:13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
You will be Saved.
The time is short. He will return.
We have that long and that’s it.
When He returns, those with faith will be rewarded and those without will be gone.
Grow your faith. Encourage your faith.