“…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9-10)
[Note: This will be the first of a series of popular ideas Christians have developed I just don’t understand given what God says in His Word. While there certainly do exist issues in the Bible that are debatable, and in these I feel we should respect other’s perspectives even though we may not agree with them and show grace instead of “wrangling over words,” there are these that cause me to scratch my head and say, “Huh?” I hope they will give you cause to pause and consider what truths you may have embraced as well, because popular doesn’t always mean correct.]
Ah, the verse that over the centuries has been used to convince thousands, if not millions, if they say a simple two-minute prayer and then go on living howsoever they choose, they are going to heaven. Are they? Well, it’s certainly easy enough to get the first part of it right, “confessing with our mouths.” I can do that in a two-minute prayer. I just need to say, “Lord, I believe in You” and it’s fiat-accompli! However, the second part is not so cut-and-dried. What does it mean to believe in one’s heart something is true?
Let’s back up in Romans a bit, to chapter 6 where Paul says, “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness.” It would appear here that those who truly believe from their heart become, through obedience,” slaves of righteousness” rather than remaining slaves of sin. I hate to constantly harp on the many polls of self-professed born-again Christians taken over the past decades that continually reveal more than 90% of them are still slaves to sin and have no idea what being obedient slaves to righteousness is all about. But the proof, as Jesus says, is in the fruit and not the words.
Do we think the people Jesus addressed in Matthew 7, who obviously confessed with their mouths, actually believed in their hearts when, after listing all the Christian things they were doing, Jesus responded “Depart from Me for I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness?” We could add to these ranks the folks Jesus asked in Luke 6, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but do not do what I say?” Didn’t Jesus say in John 15, “You are my friends IF you do what I command you?” If these folks were actually “obedient from the heart,” would they not be doing what Jesus commanded, and therefore friends rather than lawless people even though they had obviously confessed with their mouths? This is but one example of many, but you get the point.
I read where an evangelist said, “Well, if you sincerely confess and believe with your heart you will be saved,” explaining that the 90% obviously weren’t truly sincere. To that I would ask, at that point in the seeker’s existence when they have lived their entire lives in darkness, “Excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (Eph. 4), how could they possibly get a clue what “sincerity of heart” means?
When people take their wedding vows [a totally unbiblical concept in itself, but I digress], do we not think that is, among all others, the one time in their lives they thought they were the most sincere-of-heart? With all their friends and family, a preacher, and God in attendance, do we think they think they’re going to be insincere so as to make liars of themselves? And yet over 50% of them wind up divorced.
Truth is, while confessing with our mouths can be done in an instant, believing in our hearts takes a process that begins at the point of conversion but lasts a lifetime. This is why John said, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1). If we go back to Romans 6 the word “became” is used twice, inferring a process of starting as one thing and “becoming” another. Same word John uses here. Confessing Him and doing the best we know how to believe in Him at the point of conversion is certainly where it must begin, for without that we don’t even embark on the journey. But it’s by no means a ticket to heaven if we never engage in the process of sanctification in the power of the Holy Spirit thereafter to “become” something we were not before.
This is why Paul concluded his walk of faith on this earth with, “The time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. In the future [after he fought, finished, and kept] there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4). Does that sound like a man whose ticket to heaven was indeed punched? Yet, unlike the folks in Matthew 7 who simply mouthed their allegiance, Paul proved the lordship of Christ in his life through running an enduring race of obedience from start to finish!
That’s “believing in your heart” and it’s something no new convert can possibly know or understand without doing far more than “gaining the right to become” a Christian. I simply don’t understand how Christian evangelists can tell people simply mouthing a few words and making a claim no convert can possibly understand at that point assures them of salvation. This thinking has led to 90+% of the fruit they have planted from its seed becoming one of the first three the parable of the Sowar speaks of. Would you invest in a stock that went down 90% of the time?
Below I offer a different “sinner’s prayer,” one that more clearly seeks to help the new convert understand the cost of the journey they are about to embark upon. Is it a guarantee everyone who “mouths” it will go to heaven? No more than our current variety is, but at least it gives them a puncher’s chance by knowing we are partners with God in this journey to heaven and that’s far better than what they are being led to believe in this thing Christians think I don’t understand.
The Exchanged Life Prayer
Lord, I want to make an exchange with You
To exchange my former life of sin, pride, and darkness for a new life of purity, submission, and light
To exchange Your judgment for Your fellowship and my rule for Your lordship
Here and now, I’m asking You to exchange my former self I now forsake at the Cross of Calvary, for the new spiritual man only You can make me
I repent from my former life, but also, I repent toward my new life ahead. Here and now I choose to change my course, realizing I was bought with a price and this is a lifetime commitment that requires a price paid from me
I ask for Your Spirit to guide me as I walk, Your grace to uphold me when I stumble, and the realization I am a new creation and beloved child from this day forward
Help me exchange my kingdom full of chaos for new citizenship in Your kingdom come full of peace
Lord Jesus, I give you my life and ask You make my heart Your temple. Amen.
Recent Comments