THE DISCIPLINE OF CONFESSION
REV. EKOW ESHUN.
SCRIPTURE: ROMANS 10:9 (NKJV)
”That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
The mouth is a very powerful instrument, particularly for you the child of God. Right from the point of salvation, your mouth plays an important role. Salvation is the result of believing with the heart and the confession or affirmation of the mouth. Biblically, confession and affirmation are synonymous or interchangeable. Both in principle and in practice, ”confession is about saying what God has said or saying in concert or agreement with what God has said.” This is what the scriptures teach us clearly as today’s verse reveals.
Every good experience you will have as a believer will have something to do with what you are affirming daily or not. Your life therefore will change for the better or not depending on whether you are saying what God has said to you or not. Why is this so?
Firstly, because confession is a spiritual law. Also, it’s because confession in concert with believing forms the very foundation of your walk with God through Jesus Christ when you received salvation. This is why you must develop this discipline of confession all through your lifetime.
Discipline is the ability to do something you must do even when you don’t feel like doing it. A disciplined believer therefore has gained mastery over his or her feelings, physical senses, mental and intellectual opinions and contradictory circumstances. He or she has also developed a disciplined tougue. You can and must therefore maintain this discipline and practice of confession. Hebrews 13, verse 5 to 6 gives us a clue:
…For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” So that we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me.” (NKJV)
To say what God has said or to speak in concert or agreement with what God has said and maintain this discipline is the practice we are emphasizing here. Discipline yourself by learning to keep saying what God has said to you, whether from His Word, or to you personally, through prophecy, through your pastor or whilst you were in prayer or meditation.
Your spirit will be strongly built up by this practice and the full benefit will manifest in your whole life as you go on. Remember that death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat of its fruit.
CONFESSION
I am a new creation. My heart rejoices at the Word of God and my mouth declares it boldly. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. The Greater One lives in me. Because I believe in Christ Jesus as my Lord, I have and do overcome the world and all forces of evil. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and I exercise my victory over all bodily infirmities in Jesus’ name, Amen.
FURTHER READING (NKJV)
ROMANS 10:6-10
[6]But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above )
[7]or, “ ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
[8]But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
[9]that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
[10]For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.