“The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart”, that is the word of faith we are proclaiming. 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." Rom. 10:8-10
Paul wrote
these words to describe the mystery of faith and belief under the new covenant.
Notice he says that we believe in our
heart. It does not say we believe in our ‘soul’, or our ‘spirit’
but our ‘heart’. The heart is the
intersection of the human soul and the born-again spirit converging our
thoughts and will with the righteousness, truth and holiness of our born-again
spirit-man. The heart is the epicenter of believing while our born-again spirit is
the epicenter of truth, righteousness and holiness. We make decisions, especially important
decisions, from our hearts. From the overflow of the heart we speak. The Word
tells us to guard our heart. As we think in our heart so are we. It is the
place of believing and, therefore, the
place of living life.
Jesus spoke
of the power of believing numerous times including in John 5. He was addressing
the Pharisees who did not believe He was the messiah and He said to them, ‘If you believed Moses, you would believe me
for he wrote about me. But since you did not believe what he wrote, how are you
going to believe what I say? (John 5:46, 47) The Pharisees, while thinking they were believers in the scriptures, never
really BELIEVED! They never really embraced the essence of the law or the
prophets. They were outwardly
compliant but inwardly resistant to Truth. They lived outwardly what they believed inwardly, i.e. to put forth a
good image, to do good things, and to impose an outwardly righteous standard on
everyone…while never believing the central point, believing in their heart the
central truth…the Word of God. What
Jesus said did not line up with their hearts. Therefore, they did not believe
what Jesus said.
There is
power in what we believe in our hearts. It reveals who we are in our decisions.
It affects everything in life. Jesus was so bold that in John 8:44 he said to
the Pharisees, ‘You belong to your father,
the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.’ Strong words!! A confrontational challenge to what they really believed versus what
they said they believed! Jesus
was not afraid to challenge them.
Today the
Holy Spirit is not afraid to challenge what you and I believe, not just in our
heads but in our hearts! He will speak directly and indirectly to challenge the
beliefs of our heart…that place of decision where we choose to follow the ways
of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of man. The Pharisees were all about the
kingdom of man, pleasing man, satisfying an outward expression of the law so
men would be impressed and their image would be re-enforced.
Today I challenge you, a leader in
some sphere of ministry, to consider your heart. Do your decisions match up with who
you are in Christ, with your call to ministry, with your purpose for living, with
the imputed righteousness and truth of Christ in you? Does the
intersection of soul and spirit bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in your
ministry and in your family?
Do a heart
check and see what the Holy Spirit says. Also check out Deborah’s recent two
part audio series on the closely related topic of faith at www.crossfirechurch.us. Listen to these messages and…have ears to hear.
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