Unlimited: With Your Heart

Apr 17, 2023 689

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified (Romans 10:10a).

The writers of the New Testament considered that our thinking and consciousness resided in different parts of our body. Rational thought came from the mind, although by this they didn’t mean our brains. Our most profound emotions came from our bowels. The seat of our desires and emotions was the heart. The heart was the “control-centre” of our decisions and actions.

What Paul is saying here is that saving trust in God comes from the deepest part of our being. The kind of “believing” in God that saves you isn’t just a kind of intellectual belief or doctrinal understanding or a mere assent of certain truths in relation to Jesus. Belief that saves is relational and not merely propositional. Belief that saves is simply, yet powerfully, a personal relationship with Jesus that is based on trust in him.

Saving trust in God comes from your heart, the deepest part of your being.

This is totally opposed to how we want to understand this in our sinful, carnal natures. We would prefer that believing in God involved simply the understanding of truths about God, or even essentially responding to God in obedience. Then we could feel that we were somewhat in control of our own salvation. But this is not how God has chosen to save us. It really is all about trusting in his goodness. It really is all of grace.

Spiritual Application

Reflect personally on how “deep” your belief in Christ is. How fundamental is it in every aspect of your life? What would it take for you to lose it?

– Eliezer Gonzalez

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