Romans 10:8-13: The Direction Setter

But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 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. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” - Romans 10:8-13

 The word of God needs to be in two places in order to be effective: in your heart (because that is the center of your will) and in your mount (because that is how you project yourself in social situations). Is Jesus going to be Lord of both.

What does it mean to have Jesus as Lord? Well, it means that what we do is in line with what he wants. We have to internalize his style so that when we do things, it looks like what Jesus would do in the same space. We don't hear from Jesus all the time, but he has left plenty of sample interactions with people to teach us how we should do it. 

There can be a temptation to duplicate his results without duplicating his heart, and that works well for a while in well-defined situation. But life has a way of throwing curve balls at us and "duplicate" answers won't work because they need the creativity of the spirit of God to find new ways to hit that curve ball. Otherwise we are applying old stereotypical Christian solutions to new problems and new situations and that just looks stale.

If we don't control our mouths under Jesus' control, then we are poor representatives of him. Beyond his genius, Jesus' always had words that comforted and challenged those who were with him. That required connecting his mouth with his heart and required that both were integrated with the Father's will. No easy task, but definitely something that I can try to get to by thinking carefully about what I am thinking and the words that arise from that thinking. 

O Lord, set the direction for my heart and my mouth.