The Song of Salvation
Rom 10:9-10 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."
When you look at verses that make it clear that the path to heaven is narrow and not all who call on His name will make it to Heaven then you have to ask yourself, when does a person truly become saved.
The Apostle Paul answers that question in this passage.
It begins with a profession of faith. There is a moment when we have to actually say that we believe that Jesus is who He says He is. There needs to be a time when we speak out loud what has taken place in our heart. Much like baptism, it is a spoken affirmation of an inward change.
This is the key to the whole thing; an inward change. The prayer in and of itself does not gain us entrance into the exclusive company of the redeemed. It takes believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. Notice that it does not say believe with your mind. Satan himself knows that Jesus is the Son of God. He as much as said so during the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Believing it with your brain only acknowledges the truth of it, it does not acknowledge its saving power or accesses it as the truth for your life.
I know that It is possible to make money in the stock market by investing wisely. I can do all the research and predict which stock will make money and which stock will lose money. All that knowledge doesn't do me a bit of good unless I open a brokerage account and actually invest by buying and selling stocks.
CS Lewis was one of the most brilliant apologists for the Christian faith since Paul himself. His specialty in book after book was to use logic to make a case for Christianity. While God certainly can use that approach to lead people to Christ, the vast majority of born again believers came to a saving knowledge of Christ not through logic but through someone sharing with them what God has done for them. Logic and knowledge can only take you so far. Even the best argument falls short. At some point we have to take a leap of faith in order to experience His truth.
We can debate theology all day long. We can argue with logic from a philosophical standpoint. What we can't do is dismiss someone's experience. We may not believe it, but we can't say that their experience is invalid. When we share what God has done for us and how it has changed our lives it tugs at the heart strings of someone who is struggling with theirs. Their spirit resonates with the truth of God's love.
If you take a tuning fork and you strike it and touch it to a guitar or a piano, pretty soon whatever string is tuned to that same frequency will start vibrating and emitting the same note. This is known as sympathetic vibration.
We were created to have fellowship with the Father. We were tuned to a particular frequency so that we might respond to Holy Spirit. Now, we may choose to dampen our hearts by filling them with the noise of the world, but deep down that chord is waiting to be struck.
The world has filled our hearts with dissonance. Our heart strings crave that one true note. We strain with chords that produce many melodies which like the siren song entice, but lead us astray. Those unfamiliar stains are addicting and lead to slavery that ends in death.
It is with our hearts that we recognize the heavenly refrain that rings true and pure. We hear the song with our hearts, but it needs to be sung with our mouths to give it voice.
Comments
Post a Comment