“that is you confess with your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Jesus is a human name. And to proclaim that he is Lord is a profound statement that this man Jesus who lived two thousand years ago was indeed God. All that Jesus claimed to be (which included extensive statements about him being sent by the Father, his death and resurrection, his teachings etc) were not just mere statements of a man who was starting a religion. It was that of a man who was God. And for the Jew, all that the prophets had said about the coming of the messiah and all his power and authority and how he was divine was now to be attributed to Jesus.
The call for salvation is to believe in this fact first. I confess that this man Jesus is my Lord who is both creator and saviour.
But not only that, this Lord is not dead today but very much alive. God raised him from the dead. Being alive today means that he is not to dwell in the world after death – the place where we all go to when we die. We can communicate with him here and now in our world. He walks amongst our churches. He knows the condition of our world. He is calls us by name and gives us tasks to do for him as his ambassadors in this world. He is alive today after he was resurrected 2000 years ago.
I believe this to be true. This Lord of mine is alive today because God raised him from the dead. And this is how i live today. With a sense of calling for i follow my Lord’s will and assurance of hope that my Lord will guide and lead me because He is alive.
Now that is Salvation!
No comments:
Post a Comment