"THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." - Romans 10:8-10


How often have I recited this verse to someone with no fervor in my voice? How often have I treated like some formula, or a sales pitch? How often have I rejoiced in it? This is the knowledge of my salvation, the "helmet" in the "armor of God" which guards my mind. One of the most successful lies of the devil is that there is something else to find out. That somehow the problems you’re facing are so new and novel and beyond comprehension that you don’t need the fundamental truth of God’s Word. He whispers to us to get us to remove the helmet and I get to arguing with him or I try to do the work of God without God. You know you’re helmet is off when everything is juxtaposed - your relationship with God feels burdensome (when He promises rest for us) and your problems SEEM to have sovereignty instead of God. "For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness" - I don’t have to justify myself, there is no amount of "Godly" things I can do to make myself a Christian I am as much a Christian as I trust God to make me. God has brought me some way in this area but some works of deliverance take time, He started the work and He’ll finish it. I’ve read a lot lately about great men of God who fell when it seemed they were at the pinnacle of their careers or ministries. They fell for sin that were obvious: sexual immorality, drug addiction and other stuff. The Word says the sins of the flesh are "obvious," it seems like a real no-brainer. There were always two reasons; lack of intimacy with Jesus and lack of accountability to members of the body. They started trying to do it on their own, removed themselves from God’s protection, ran out of steam and lost their spiritual effectiveness and had no power to resist the "obvious" sins of the flesh. It isn’t a matter of how much you can see, or figure out, it’s actually a lot simper than we make it. God’s command to Adam was pretty straight forward - "don’t eat from that tree." It was satan who complicated by asking questions to draw Adam and Eve away from the simple knowledge of God. Don’t get me wrong I love getting revelation from God but revelation comes from relationship not from having figured anything out - "Lean NOT on your own understanding," Proverbs says. The most basic way to activate faith in your heart is to ask for help, some part of you wants to ask for help and that, I believe, is the free gift of faith, the mustard seed, that God gave you so that you could be saved from whatever you’re in. If there is a desire in your heart to ask for help that you have faith because if you didn’t have any faith you wouldn’t even think or want to ask. The confession from the mouth is the activation of the faith in your heart. I am justified because I believe Jesus died for my sins and I have to activate that faith every day and confess His Lordship. If that knowledge isn’t what you’re relying on, I wonder if you’ve misplaced your helmet. I've just secured mine and it feels pretty damn good.

I haven't posted in a bit soooo here I am. So, I'm being promoted at work and I've been praying that God keeps me in line as far as not getting caught up in the business of life. I heard a good word the other day, "business creates barreness." I wept in prayer not too long ago because I felt like I was growing weary between my time with God, work, all the church meetings, making time for people, so forth and so on. I asked is this how people lose their first love? The church of Ephesus was complimented for their good works but they had become busy with doing things for God and not taking time to allow Him to love them and to love Him in return. I can't do this on my own and I and thank God that He reminds of that, He consoled me with this scripture; "As a father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion on those that fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust" (Psalm 103:13-14). Hey, if God made a plan to restore His children to Himself despite Adam and Eve handing the world to satan then I think I can trust Him with the plans of my life, no? He's not sweating over it so I don't think I'm going to either because I belong to Him.