....that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
—Romans 10:9
The famous verse above offers a one-sentence summary—actually, just a half-sentence summary—of two conditions that are necessary for obtaining the renewed and reawakened life that Jesus gives. Those conditions are: (1) confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and (2) believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
Which of these two conditions is harder to satisfy?
It would seem as though the second condition is easier to meet. The heart is (seemingly) a safe and secret place in which to entertain faith. Presumably, a person could just believe there, muttering the belief only to himself, whispering the belief in his thoughts. The first condition, confessing out loud, is different—that involves exposure. More, it involves almost certain humiliation. People will turn away, smirk, and judge you naïve.
However, the ordering of the verse above suggests that condition 2 must be something more significant than just an easy follow-on to condition 1. There is the sense of a progression here, a stairstep ascent toward “you will be saved.” What if condition 2 is actually the greater commitment?
Peter (portrayed by El Greco in the painting above) met condition 1. He confessed that Jesus is Lord. He confessed it aloud, just as the verse says. In a powerful moment, in fact, Peter was among the very first to perceive and proclaim the divinity of Jesus in an inspired and genuine way (see Luke 9:20). At this point, Peter had committed to following Jesus and he would soon find himself empowered to heal and drive out demons in Jesus’ name. But did he believe? As it turned out, not yet.
Of course, while Jesus was with him, Peter could not believe God raised Jesus from the dead—that hadn’t happened yet. Still: Jesus was with him. And Peter’s confession showed how he recognized who Jesus was. But in spite of this, when a crucial moment came, Peter denied his association with Jesus. He lied to cover it. He denied Jesus aloud—repeatedly. Luke 22:54-62 tells this story—the moment when Peter’s belief was revealed to be just skin-deep, just voice-deep. Belief had not yet fully entered his heart.
From time to time, I re-examine why it is that I believe. I ask why I made this choice.
Getting into heaven was not the reason. Life after death held no fear for me. Heaven must be an accepting and welcoming place, I assumed. If there really was some special requirement for getting into heaven, then I assumed God would understand why I didn’t meet that requirement—why I apparently got confused and missed it during this life. If God did exist, I reasoned, then I could talk to him when I saw him. I could learn the truth then. Indeed, scripture shows a picture of something like this very thing. A criminal appeals to Jesus with his few remaining breaths, and the criminal gets into to heaven on the basis of only this appeal (Luke 23:42-43). I didn’t know about that story back then, but still I assumed I’d have some similar chance to offer up my case—if and when it mattered. I didn’t give much thought to heaven then. And I still don’t.
Now, however, the reason why I don’t give much thought to heaven is different. The new life, the life after this world, has begun already. The adventure within freedom has begun. And the reason why I have chosen belief, why I chose to believe in the way of the resurrected Son, is because of this very adventure—the journey of stepping out, facing fears, and walking on the waves.
Yet first there is a choice. I met people who confessed God and I decided to join them—but still there was a choice.
I called out to God, to the Son, and I came to recognize the ways in which he answers—but still there was a choice.
Finally, I opened my heart to Jesus. I did this not upon discovering the reality of Jesus, but later than that—upon discovering the reality of my heart. There is a real and vital center to each of us that is more than just an abstraction. Rather than being unreal, the heart is hyper-real—because it has the potential to be bigger than this world.
A person could be forgiven for not knowing that—not knowing that he or she has such a heart. Unknowingly, I gave my heart to pride, approval, income, and other temporary comforts. These things left me cheap and starving and small. Setting my heart free entailed releasing it from the prison of such submission, the submission to tiny things. The only problem was: I was in love with this prison. I had fallen in love with walls and bars. My heart had become this prison. Each of our hearts, in fact, consists of many such prisons. And each time we lose one of the most confining and defining prisons that contain us, we initially experience this change in our lives with a feeling of pain or tragedy or loss. Indeed, the world often cannot see anything else, anything of value, in the sorts of changes that accompany faith.
Peter did not believe, not after all the time he spent with Jesus. He did not have faith. He did not find this faith until he came to the end of who he had imagined himself to be.
Peter lied to protect himself. He lied to deny Jesus. He failed publicly and profoundly—and he watched himself do it. He was shattered by a self-inflicted blow to the spirit, and when it was done, he fled back to his old life as a fisherman (John 21:3), not knowing what else he could do.
But the resurrected Jesus forgave him. And over time, Peter accepted the forgiveness. He lived the life of the Spirit. He stood up from the self-inflicted blow.
To believe is ultimately to know this transformation, and on some level, to choose it—to choose the rising up so completely that we also choose the fall that precedes it. There is, of necessity, a demolition that precedes rebuilding. I gave my heart to Jesus once I found this heart. And I made the discovery of my own heart—I began for the first time to feel my heart’s depth and fullness and potential—only after that heart had at last been sufficiently broken.
—Romans 10:9
The famous verse above offers a one-sentence summary—actually, just a half-sentence summary—of two conditions that are necessary for obtaining the renewed and reawakened life that Jesus gives. Those conditions are: (1) confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and (2) believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
Which of these two conditions is harder to satisfy?
It would seem as though the second condition is easier to meet. The heart is (seemingly) a safe and secret place in which to entertain faith. Presumably, a person could just believe there, muttering the belief only to himself, whispering the belief in his thoughts. The first condition, confessing out loud, is different—that involves exposure. More, it involves almost certain humiliation. People will turn away, smirk, and judge you naïve.
However, the ordering of the verse above suggests that condition 2 must be something more significant than just an easy follow-on to condition 1. There is the sense of a progression here, a stairstep ascent toward “you will be saved.” What if condition 2 is actually the greater commitment?
Peter (portrayed by El Greco in the painting above) met condition 1. He confessed that Jesus is Lord. He confessed it aloud, just as the verse says. In a powerful moment, in fact, Peter was among the very first to perceive and proclaim the divinity of Jesus in an inspired and genuine way (see Luke 9:20). At this point, Peter had committed to following Jesus and he would soon find himself empowered to heal and drive out demons in Jesus’ name. But did he believe? As it turned out, not yet.
Of course, while Jesus was with him, Peter could not believe God raised Jesus from the dead—that hadn’t happened yet. Still: Jesus was with him. And Peter’s confession showed how he recognized who Jesus was. But in spite of this, when a crucial moment came, Peter denied his association with Jesus. He lied to cover it. He denied Jesus aloud—repeatedly. Luke 22:54-62 tells this story—the moment when Peter’s belief was revealed to be just skin-deep, just voice-deep. Belief had not yet fully entered his heart.
From time to time, I re-examine why it is that I believe. I ask why I made this choice.
Getting into heaven was not the reason. Life after death held no fear for me. Heaven must be an accepting and welcoming place, I assumed. If there really was some special requirement for getting into heaven, then I assumed God would understand why I didn’t meet that requirement—why I apparently got confused and missed it during this life. If God did exist, I reasoned, then I could talk to him when I saw him. I could learn the truth then. Indeed, scripture shows a picture of something like this very thing. A criminal appeals to Jesus with his few remaining breaths, and the criminal gets into to heaven on the basis of only this appeal (Luke 23:42-43). I didn’t know about that story back then, but still I assumed I’d have some similar chance to offer up my case—if and when it mattered. I didn’t give much thought to heaven then. And I still don’t.
Now, however, the reason why I don’t give much thought to heaven is different. The new life, the life after this world, has begun already. The adventure within freedom has begun. And the reason why I have chosen belief, why I chose to believe in the way of the resurrected Son, is because of this very adventure—the journey of stepping out, facing fears, and walking on the waves.
Yet first there is a choice. I met people who confessed God and I decided to join them—but still there was a choice.
I called out to God, to the Son, and I came to recognize the ways in which he answers—but still there was a choice.
Finally, I opened my heart to Jesus. I did this not upon discovering the reality of Jesus, but later than that—upon discovering the reality of my heart. There is a real and vital center to each of us that is more than just an abstraction. Rather than being unreal, the heart is hyper-real—because it has the potential to be bigger than this world.
A person could be forgiven for not knowing that—not knowing that he or she has such a heart. Unknowingly, I gave my heart to pride, approval, income, and other temporary comforts. These things left me cheap and starving and small. Setting my heart free entailed releasing it from the prison of such submission, the submission to tiny things. The only problem was: I was in love with this prison. I had fallen in love with walls and bars. My heart had become this prison. Each of our hearts, in fact, consists of many such prisons. And each time we lose one of the most confining and defining prisons that contain us, we initially experience this change in our lives with a feeling of pain or tragedy or loss. Indeed, the world often cannot see anything else, anything of value, in the sorts of changes that accompany faith.
Peter did not believe, not after all the time he spent with Jesus. He did not have faith. He did not find this faith until he came to the end of who he had imagined himself to be.
Peter lied to protect himself. He lied to deny Jesus. He failed publicly and profoundly—and he watched himself do it. He was shattered by a self-inflicted blow to the spirit, and when it was done, he fled back to his old life as a fisherman (John 21:3), not knowing what else he could do.
But the resurrected Jesus forgave him. And over time, Peter accepted the forgiveness. He lived the life of the Spirit. He stood up from the self-inflicted blow.
To believe is ultimately to know this transformation, and on some level, to choose it—to choose the rising up so completely that we also choose the fall that precedes it. There is, of necessity, a demolition that precedes rebuilding. I gave my heart to Jesus once I found this heart. And I made the discovery of my own heart—I began for the first time to feel my heart’s depth and fullness and potential—only after that heart had at last been sufficiently broken.
