“If You Will Use” ( Romans 10: 9 KNOX ) by Carley Evans

Heard this before? Cheap grace? Read Paul’s short description of “finding salvation”:

⁹ Thou canst find salvation, if thou wilt use thy lips to confess that Jesus is the Lord, and thy heart to believe that God has raised him up from the dead.

What’s cheap about that? As a matter of fact, what’s particularly easy about that? Certainly it is not common to believe a person rises from the dead – it’s common to pretend this happens but to believe it really happens – well, that’s not as likely and definitely not easy to believe.

To say out loud “Jesus is Lord” and act like Jesus is Lord is not that easy and certainly not cheap either. To act like Jesus is Lord is costly. Jesus warns about starting a task you haven’t planned to finish, about forgetting your daily cross, about lip-service to God without a change of heart.

He warns that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” actually understands who He is and what He does.