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Declaring With Our Mouths

             If you declare 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 profess your faith and are saved. (Romans 10:9-10)

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (James 2:19)

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark12:30)

Usually, I avoid this passage because I don’t understand it. Anyone can say “Jesus is Lord” but not actually believe it. And anyone can believe that God raised Him from the dead without turning to God to be saved. We can lie to ourselves and lie to each other. We can lie to God, but He’s not deceived. After all, the demons believe there is one God, and I venture to add that they understand the gospel message. That doesn’t make them born again.

But, this was the passage of the day online, and (probably thanks to Dallas Willard) I propose a different understanding. Jesus taught us how we’re to love God: with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Those are four of the five “parts” of a person. But is the point that we’re to evaluate each part and make sure they’re loving God? Or is the point that we’re to love God with all of our being?

In the same way, when Paul writes about our declarations and our hearts, is the focus on the just your heart (will) and your body (mouth)? Or is the focus on all that is within us, and all that what is within us causes us to say or do? This fits with memes I sometimes see that suggest that it doesn’t matter what we believe. What matters is what we do. I tend to argue that what we believe produces what we do, so they aren’t separate. Both matter equally. 

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