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"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."
Romans 10:9-10
During baptism and confirmation, we renounce sin and profess our faith. Most of us understand sinning and taking communion to repent of our sins, so in this devotion I want to focus on trying to understand what it means to profess our faith.
The first thing I think of when professing our faith is page 881 in the Methodist hymnal - the Traditional version of the Apostle's Creed. I recited it all the time in church as a child. One thing we need to understand is that reciting or saying something in words does not always reflect our heart. When we profess our faith, we need to try to make sure that what we are saying is also in our heart.
Lent is particularly a good time to think of profession of faith because of the story of Peter. Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. One purpose of professing our faith is to declare that we are not ashamed to be Jesus's followers. After the rooster crowed, Peter understood what he had done. Luckily, Jesus came back to life and Peter found the courage to trust God and carry out Jesus' work for the rest of his life. Just professing our faith accompanied by good works does not guarantee salvation. We need the repentance of sin in order to be born again.
About Melissa Hall
Melissa has attended St. Thomas since 2017. Her husband, Nathan, is the communications committee lead. They have a 5-year-old daughter named Everly. Outside of church, she is a software developer and likes to walk/jog.