Daily Devotion (January 15, 2024)
Romans 10:9–10 (NKJV) — 9 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. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
To confess! To agree with God. The confession of faith. It is more than just speaking the words. It is to acknowledge God’s truth. It is to agree with God. Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” God tells us in Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way…” Sin is above all things are our thought and actions against God. Just as God had compassion on Sodom and Gomorrah God has compassion on us. Abraham prayed for them. God gave Sodom and Gomorrah the opportunity to repent. They refused. They were destroyed. God is giving our nation, and the world, the opportunity to repent of our sin against Him.
How have we sinned? 1 Samuel 12:10 says, “Then they cried out to the LORD, and said, ‘WE HAVE SINNED, BECAUSE WE HAVE FORSAKEN THE LORD AND SERVED THE BAALS AND ASHTORETHS.” We pray for deliverance and promise if God will deliver us from the “hand of our enemies we will serve Him”. But…after a period of time we return to the same sin we were committing against God. Today we are sinning against God. We have forsaken God. We have made false confessions to God. We speak the words with our mouth but with our hearts we continue down the path of sin and degradation. We pray for God to “deliver us from the hand of our enemies,” and promise to serve Him, but then we return to the same way we lived before.
Isaiah 53:6 ends with “…And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Sin does not go unpunished. Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross. Having accepted His sacrifice for our sin, his atonement for our sin, how could we ever turn our back on God and continue down the path of sin and immorality. God was patient with Sodom and Gomorrah giving them the opportunity to repent. They refused. God is giving each of us the same opportunity. “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus “AND BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART” …To believe in your heart is total and absolute. It is giving everything you have to God. It is not just words spoken it is total surrender to God. One may say that is more than I am willing to give. But to not surrender to God is to surrender to Satan giving him total control over our lives. Jesus loves us, John 3:16. Satan hates God and us and leads us down the path of sin and hatred. Ephesians 2:2 states “in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.”
Joshua 24:15 “And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.”