Romans 10:1 13 Verses 9 &10 tell us, "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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Paul says earlier in the chapter that the Jews did not know the righteousness that came from God and tried to come up with their own righteousness based on the law. But the law has always been a warning sign showing us how short we fall from God's standards; and can never be a means of establishing our righteousness. Jesus Christ is the end of the law, (verse 4) in that He was the only one who has ever lived in the flesh who was able to fulfill the law 100%. It is only in our identification with Him that we are able to receive the righteousness that God has provided. Verse 9 tells us that we need to confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord. To the Jew this was to acknowledge that Jesus was God. To the Roman it was saying that Jesus was Lord not Caesar. Both were very heavy-duty statements in which one laid his life on the line. The word "confess" comes from the Greek word "homologeo" which means to say the same thing. In other words, our mouth is saying the same thing as our lives are living. You do things differently if you answer to Christ rather than just your whim. We live to please Him and fulfill His agenda. To believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead says that we are not living merely a set of principles but unto a living Lord, not only with God's stamp of approval but, as God Himself. What begins by believing and confessing, our cooperating with the power of God grows into a lifestyle characterized by the righteousness of Christ.

Believing and Confessing