If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. - Romans 10:9
I grew up going to church and hearing about God. I heard stories about this God-Man named Jesus along with stories of many other faithful people throughout the Bible who placed their faith in this God, and many others who suffered terrible consequences for not being obedient.
Growing up, my dad would read a bedtime story to me and two of my sisters. As we grew, we transitioned from the Alice in Bibleland series to a book called A Closer Look at Evidence by Richard & Tina Kleiss.
One night, after my dad finished reading this book, he asked us girls, “Do you know Jesus as your personal savior?”
One sister said yes, another said no and had no interest, but while my answer was no, I said, “But I want to.” I didn’t fully understand what all this meant, only that I needed this Jesus in my life.
My dad led me through a prayer right there to receive Jesus into my heart. As I prayed there was a transaction that occurred: I gave Jesus the key to my heart and I gained the Holy Spirit (and I cried).
But by the very next morning, I was already under an attack by Doubt. Was I truly saved? How could I know for certain? Did I say the right words? Did God truly love me?
During a day at the lake, I even looked at the apparent freedom of the world and thought, “Life would be so much easier if I wasn’t a Christian.” But immediately after I was convicted by another thought, “How could I deny the God I knew was real?”
Romans 10:9 says, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Only two things God requires of us to be saved, which we see demonstrated by the thief on the cross in Luke 23:39-43:
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
To declare with your mouth: To admit verbally, outloud to another person that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, the only means by which we can enter heaven - no actions of our own could ever qualify us.
To believe in your heart: To have that private moment between you and the Lord where there is that transaction of surrendering your heart to God and receiving Him into your heart.
I did this when I admitted I wanted to know this Jesus as my personal savior, recognizing I needed Him to save me, and I said the prayer my dad led me through; and during that moment where I surrendered the key of my heart to Jesus and He entered in.
The thief did this as he rebuked his fellow criminal in recognizing that Jesus hung on that cross for us though He had done absolutely nothing wrong (v41); and when he turned to Jesus and asked to be remembered by Jesus in heaven (v42).
This remembrance in Greek is not a passive happen-by-chance-thought, it is a purposeful and active effort to remember. Which Jesus assured the thief that it would be so because that very day they would be in paradise together.
In the same manner, from the moment we are saved, admitting our need for a Savior and accepting Jesus into our hearts, God assures us that if we were to die at that very moment, we would be going immediately into heaven.
This post is a beginning of a series I will be doing to share my testimony and walk with Jesus.
All Bible references are from the New International Version (NIV) unless noted otherwise.