Saved!

Daily Reading: Romans 10

Scripture Focus: 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. (Romans 10.9)

Devotional Thought: Have you ever had the privilege of seeing a person "saved"?  Paul's statement in Romans 10.9 has guided spiritual pilgrims for two millennia as they sought the way of salvation:

• Confess with your mouth.  Faith is more than an inward thing.  True faith has to make its way out; it has to be expressed.  Paul wrote elsewhere that “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (emphasis mine, Galatians 5.6).  The first way for faith to express itself in works is in confession.

• Jesus is Lord.  Saving faith is not some abstract idea or principle that does not change you.  No! Saving faith is the radical reorientation of our lives around a new Lord, a new set of values, a new principle of living. 

• Believe in your heart.  While confession is faith working its way out, believing in your heart is faith working its way in.  Salvation is not accomplished through the observation of external rules and regulations.  It must penetrate the heart.  We are changed from the inside out.

• God raised him from the dead.  Here is the foundational truth of our faith.  God raised Jesus.  He is no longer in the tomb.  And just as Jesus was raised from the dead, we too – by faith – are raised to live a new life!

• You will be saved.  We are saved from the power and penalty of sin, from the rule of death, from the wrath of God.  But, we are saved to something, not just from something.  We are saved to hope, to peace, to joy, and to love.  We are saved to live full, joyful and holy lives.

Through Jesus Christ, we are saved!  Pray for an opportunity to share those truths with someone today.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have saved me!  I believe in my heart that you have been raised, and I thank you for the new life you have given me.  Help me to share that life with others around me today.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 28.1-5

1 To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.

2 Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.

3 Do not drag me off with the wicked, with the workers of evil, who speak peace with their neighbors while evil is in their hearts.

4 Give to them according to their work and according to the evil of their deeds; give to them according to the work of their hands; render them their due reward.

5 Because they do not regard the works of the LORD or the work of his hands, he will tear them down and build them up no more.