Friday, October 16, 2020 -
God continues to amaze me with the way He is working and moving in the lives of the men who are in our church which meets each night in the HA unit at Ashland Federal Correctional Institution. What the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives and hearts of these men is truly transforming.
For example, one man came to me today, and also shared this later with the church as a whole, that the Holy Spirit gave him a revelation while listening to John 2 on his MP3 player. He told me, “You know, the Lord spoke to me that when Jesus was cleansing the temple of all the things that were not edifying to His father’s house, that elsewhere in the New Testament, we are called God’s temple. And so, Christ is seeking to cleanse us of all the things that are not edifying to us and for our Christian testimony. This includes the books and magazines we read, the television we watch, and so forth.”
These are men who may have had a head knowledge of the Lord, but did not believe in their heart. Romans 10:8-10; “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 is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes resulting in salvation.”
The verbs used for “believes” and “confesses” in verse ten indicate a continuous, lifetime of believing and confessing. This is what results in salvation. One must confess with his mouth Jesus and believe in his heart, He is the Son of God, but it takes both confession and believing in one’s heart that Jesus is Lord. To confess with our mouth and heart His lordship recognizes that one’s life is no longer his own, but that he belongs fully to Christ. We do what Jesus tells us to do in Matthew 16:24-25, that we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. This continuous belief and devotion to Him as Lord of our life results in salvation and eternal life. I praise God it is evident now that each of these men has done this, confessed and believed not only with their minds, but with their hearts, and continually testify to this fact. If you haven’t done so, I pray that you do the same!