Everyone Who Calls

July 14

2 Chronicles 3-5

Psalm 80:4-7

Proverbs 17:27-28

Romans 10

Everyone who Calls

“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. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So, faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Romans 10:9-10, 13, 17 HCSB

By confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts, we are saved. Nothing more and nothing less. Paul is very clear. This is the gospel message. All who call on the name of the Lord believing He is who He said He is, will be saved. From Paul’s time till today, men have tried to add more to it. Like the Pharisees added to the Law that God gave Moses, religious leaders throughout the ages have tried to add to the gospel message with lists of rules and standards of how to get saved and what you must do once you are saved. Unfortunately, most of those things are not biblical. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day created an elaborate system of rules and regulations that everyone must follow to control them. They were in charge, and the rules gave them more power. We are quick to condemn them and yet we are guilty of the same thing. We welcome sinners in to be saved, but once they are saved, we have a long list of rules and expectations. There is a fine line, because we are told to hold each other accountable, we cannot overlook sin in a fellow believer, and we have a responsibility to help others live lives that are pleasing to God. The problem is that we must be careful that the rules we expect them to follow are God’s rules and not our rules.

If God’s Word speaks to an issue, then we must obey whatever it says. If it is not found in scripture or is unclear, then we cannot be dogmatic about it. God has given us each the Holy Spirit living in us to guide and convict. Something that may be sinful for me, may not be sinful for someone else. If I have an issue with self-control, having a glass of wine might be sinful for me, but for someone who does not struggle with this, one glass might be totally fine. If I have an issue with lusting, going to a beach with bikini clad women might be sinful for me, but if this is not something that I struggle with, then I am free to go to the beach. However, drunkenness and pornography are not acceptable behaviors for anyone. When someone gets saved, God does not expect them to immediately be perfect. He begins the long, slow process of sanctification. He works on different areas of our lives at different times. We have to be sensitive to His leading in addressing sin in our own lives and even more careful in confronting sin in others. We must guard our hearts from being judgmental and let Him lead us regarding addressing sin in the life of another. Sometimes He will call us to do that, but when He does it will be with gentle humility and love, never piety. Most often our response should be sincere prayer for the person.