05/29/2026
Confessing the Lord
Anybody can repeat words without meaning what they’re saying. If I claim that I am an aardvark, I am not so, just because I said so.
In the world of religion, repetition happens frequently, especially in church worship services, where you may sing songs with choruses repeated, or cite creeds, or have responsive readings in which you’re asked to participate. But how many of us blindly say the words we’re supposed to say, that we’ve learned by rote, but without our heart in it? I was taught the Lord’s Prayer as a child, and said it only-God-knows how many times growing up. Did I always mean the words with the gravity Jesus intended? Surely not. I’m still glad I was taught it though. God’s Word does sink in and have its impact.
There is one very crucial confession people are supposed to make if they claim to be a Christian. Romans 10:9 puts it this way – “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.”
Well, that sounds easy enough. Just say the words “Jesus is Lord” and I get to go to heaven when I die? Consider it done!
Well, let’s back up a minute. First of all, as I said at the outset, anybody can repeat words without meaning what they’re saying. The latter part of the verse I cited mentions also believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, so, it’s not simply a mental and verbal exercise, but a true heart belief. God knows whether or not we mean what we say.
To “confess”, biblically speaking, means more than mindless, verbal repetition. It means truly embracing, standing by, committing to, and agreeing with God about what it is you’re saying. That being so, no one is getting saved “by accident”, or because they technically repeated the right words on one or more occasions. Paul elaborated on this in I Corinthians 12:3, where he wrote “Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Again, he clearly doesn’t mean that a person cannot form those words without divine help. But he does mean they won’t mean those words, without such help.
Further, as Paul indicated back in Romans 10:9, a correct confession is a sign of salvation, and not everyone even considers such a thing as “being saved”, likely because they never “felt lost” to begin with, and if that’s so, they don’t feel compelled to make a confession.
May God sensitize us, though, to realize we are lost apart from His intervention, and in what He’s provided in His Son, we have just what we need to be awakened out of our spiritual deadness, repent, and receive the whole package of what God has for those He will redeem. Jesus did the hard part. Confession, by us? Pretty easy.
Pastor Craig
