Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart

Romans 10:9-10 (NIV)

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. 

Your salvation comes from both believing and speaking.  Your believing is an internal matter, between you and God.  Your speaking is an external matter, between you and other people.  Your heart (‘kardia’ in the Greek) is the center of your physical and spiritual life.  It is your soul and your mind as well as it is the fountain and seat of the your thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, and endeavors.  Your mouth  (‘stoma’ in the Greek) is the verbal utterance of what is in your heart (Matt 15:18).

Salvation means that you are set free from the eternal judgment of God.  It means that you are no longer a slave to sin.  Sin still exists in life, but a person who is saved keeps trying to run away from sin while the person who is unsaved keep running toward it.  It’s the attitude and resultant actions that change once a person is saved.  Salvation, according to this passage, means that you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord because you readily confess this truth with your mouth.  Salvation also means that you believe within your heart that Jesus died for your sins and was raised from the dead by God. 

In I John 4:2, there is a very important test that the Bible gives you to determine the true belief of someone, including yourself, about Jesus Christ and the proof that His Spirit lives within the person.  The proof is this---the confession that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate.  That is, you believe that Jesus is God and that God became flesh in Christ to save mankind from their sin nature.  If you do not believe that Jesus is God Incarnate (God in the flesh) and is one with God, you are not saved because you do not have the Holy Spirit within you to glorify God. 

Note that this passage affirms that you must believe in Jesus as the Lord of your life.  People might believe that Jesus is their Savior, but don’t live their lives with Him as their Lord.  Salvation is based both on believing in Jesus as your Lord and as the Savior of your life.  I know that I used to testify that I invited Jesus in my life to be my Savior but I didn’t follow Him as Lord for several years.  I really believed that I was saved, yet I didn’t go to church, didn’t read the Bible, didn’t do anything for the Lord.  I’ll always wonder if I was truly saved in those earlier years before I finally rededicated my life to Christ that involved getting active as a Christian and serving God through serving others.  Make sure that if you believe that you are saved that you are showing the works that back up your faith; that Jesus is indeed Lord as well as Savior of your life. 

Why does confession come first, then belief in verse 9 while verse 10 has belief coming first, then confession?  William MacDonald in Believer’s Bible Commentary states that verse 9 emphasizes Jesus coming to earth (Incarnation, Jesus is Lord) and His resurrection (God raised Him from the dead) that occurred in chronological order.  In verse 10 the emphasis is on the order of events in the salvation of a sinner.  First, belief, then the public confession of his/her salvation. 

Can you claim these verses as your own?  If not, is it not time to take action on what the Bible says and believe with all your heart that Jesus came to save you and become the Lord of your life and then confess Him as your Savior and Lord both privately and then publicly.  Your eternal destiny depends on this decision.