Romans 10:5-21, Anyone Can Be Saved

 ⁵Moses said that a person could become acceptable to God by obeying the Law. He did this when he wrote, "If you want to live, you must do all that the Law commands."
    ⁶But people whose faith makes them acceptable to God will never ask, "Who will go up to heaven to bring Christ down?" ⁷Neither will they ask, "Who will go down into the world of the dead to raise him to life?"
    ⁸All who are acceptable because of their faith simply say, "The message is as near as your mouth or your heart." And this is the same message we preach about faith. ⁹So you will be saved, if you honestly say, "Jesus is Lord," and if you believe with all your heart that God raised him from death. ¹⁰God will accept you and save you, if you truly believe this and tell it to others.
    ¹¹The Scriptures say that no one who has faith will be disappointed, ¹²no matter if that person is a Jew or a Gentile. There is only one Lord, and he is generous to everyone who asks for his help. ¹³All who call out to the Lord will be saved.
    ¹⁴How can people have faith in the Lord and ask him to save them, if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear, unless someone tells them? ¹⁵And how can anyone tell them without being sent by the Lord? The Scriptures say it is a beautiful sight to see even the feet of someone coming to preach the good news. ¹⁶Yet not everyone has believed the message. For example, the prophet Isaiah asked, "Lord, has anyone believed what we said?"
    ¹⁷No one can have faith without hearing the message about Christ. ¹⁸But am I saying that the people of Israel did not hear? No, I am not! The Scriptures say,
   "The message was told
   everywhere on earth.
   It was announced
   all over the world."
    ¹⁹Did the people of Israel understand or not? Moses answered this question when he told that the Lord had said,
   "I will make Israel jealous
   of people
   who are a nation
   of nobodies.
   I will make them angry
   at people
   who don't understand
   a thing."
    ²⁰Isaiah was fearless enough to tell that the Lord had said,
   "I was found by people
   who were not looking
   for me.
   I appeared to the ones
   who were not asking
   about me."
    ²¹And Isaiah said about the people of Israel,
   "All day long the Lord
   has reached out
   to people who are stubborn
   and refuse to obey."
   
Wow! I'd like to meditate on this for awhile..."you will be saved, if you honestly say, "Jesus is Lord," and if you believe with all your heart that God raised him from death". It can't be any more clear.

I like Paul's analogy. If we want to find God, we don't need to make the unimaginable journey to to wherever He dwells. All we need to do is cover that small distance between the heart and the mind...maybe 18 inches. When the heart believes it and the mind is willing to let the tongue proclaim it...the journey is complete, we are at home with the Lord.

There are many, however, who see that 18 inches and say "we can't get there from here!" Getting both the head and the heart to agree on anything is difficult. Even at that, we're told "All who call out to the Lord will be saved". I have to believe the Holy Spirit is the exclusive and perfect guide to get all of us from point A to point B. 

What concerns me most is..."How can people have faith in the Lord and ask him to save them, if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear, unless someone tells them? And how can anyone tell them without being sent by the Lord?"

These are not rhetorical questions...

Live boldly out there today...