Today’s Reading: Romans 10:1-13
“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart…”
What is faith? What does living faithfully look like? How do we do that?
Well, I think we are called to act as if Jesus is Lord, as if Death is conquered, as if faithfulness makes a difference, as if God will do as he promises. We can strive to live our lives with faith that God can be trusted and His word relied upon and in so doing, bring light and hope to those around us.
Some promises are hard to trust in, but we can sincerely work to trust in God anyway.  All of us are called by God to build our lives on a dream and a promise. We are called to face all that life may throw at us and do all that God may ask of us, no matter what the cost. What is most important in our lives may not be how much we have believed, but that we have believed and in faith, followed him. We can make the choice to believe in his promises no matter how incredible they seem, wait on him, be as he means us to be and believe that in the end God’s blessings will be ours.
We can choose to submit to the belief that Christ brings salvation and that faith is the path to righteousness.  In Christ, God has promised us so much. He holds out to us not just forgiveness of our sins and life everlasting, but he offers us a rich full life here and now, a life where, as he would have us believe is His will, we can do what we had thought impossible for us and where our brothers and sisters can and will be what they never thought they could be.
We can seek within ourselves that “Christ seed” that was planted in our Baptism and with nurturing grows and produces fruit of the Kingdom.  We can believe that Christ, the Word, is on our lips and in our hearts. Then we can confess with our lips what we believe in our hearts…that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved.
We can find life through our faith… we can live it, practice it and witness to it. What we practice becomes a part of us and what is a part of us becomes visible in our lives. We can make that choice to do these outward things and in so doing, live sacramentally. That is, we can become the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace that is Christ within us.
Will we choose to believe that God saves, helps and protects us and live as if this is true?
Will we submit ourselves to Him and practice our faith as if we believe in God’s real, true promises?
If we can choose to do these things, then we will be living “as if” and others may be reached and encouraged to seek that which we have, finding the faith that brings them to the life that is everlasting which we have been promised by our Lord and Savior.
Author: Susan Reeves