Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. But what does [Scripture] say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 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. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

—Romans 10:1-4, 8-10 (TNIV)

As a recovering works-righteous person, I can relate to Paul’s writing here and testify that it is not simply Jews who labor under the delusion of works-righteousness. It is a malady that afflicts us all to one degree or another. It seems to me that works-righteousness is a remnant of our desire to be God and not be beholden to him or anyone else for our eternal destiny.

But Paul calls a spade a spade and reminds us that there is no such thing as salvation by works. No, we are saved by the blood of Christ, shed for us while we were still God’s enemies. None of us can earn our way into heaven; we can only get there by our faith in Christ. Speaking personally, this is a very freeing thing. When I labored under the delusion of works-righteousness, it was a terrible burden trying to earn my way into God’s kingdom because I could never seem to get it right all the time (or even most of the time) and this led me to suffer terrible bouts of despair and depression.

No more (or rarely any more). I still continue to muck along and get it wrong as often as I get it right. What’s changed is this. Now I really believe that eternal life is a free gift offered to me in Christ. Yes, God still finds my sins grievous, and yes I still work hard to get it right as much as possible. But I do so now with the understanding that my performance does not determine my destiny. Christ’s blood does and this takes all the pressure off me. I want to please Christ but I know that nothing I can do will earn me a place with him forever.

Instead, because I know Christ loves me and died for me, even though I do not deserve his love or this gift, I have confidence that I will live with him forever. This requires real trust and hope. It is a trust and hope rooted in the real knowledge of what God has done for us in Jesus. It is knowledge gained through Scripture, prayer, Christian fellowship, and experience, both my own as well as countless others. I do not feel the need to “prove” this to others because that is not how faith works. Empirical proof is not my final arbiter of truth because it perforce is limited to things, well, empirical, and life is much more than just empirical data. To be sure, I want to proclaim the Good News to any who will listen, but if they demand that I “prove” it empirically, I cannot help them. I would simply say the proof is in changed lives and Kingdom values lived, albeit not always consistently. This business of becoming like Christ is a slow, arduous process and illustrates just how tightly sin clings to us.

This is what Paul was talking about when he writes that we are saved if we believe that Jesus is Lord. For Paul, as with most of his contemporaries, “heart” meant more than just the seat of affections and feelings. It also referred to the mind and to the will. Consequently, if we believe Jesus is Lord and has acted on our behalf to save us from permanent separation from God, we will speak and act like it. As James’ letter reminds us, our faith will always be made manifest in our actions. We will seek to act in ways that are pleasing to Christ because we are ever thankful for the great gift he has given us.

The world now is like an oil press and we all feel its pressure. If you are dregs [remnants], you run off down the drain; if you are the good oil, you remain in the vat. Pressure is applied by famine, war, poverty, need, epidemics, robbery, greed, and unrest in the cities. Some people grumble, “Look what great evils there are in these Christian times!” That’s the dregs collapsing under the pressure of the times. But now hear the voice of those who like good oil have been purified and strengthened by the pressure. They cry out, “O God, blessed be your name. You foretold that these bad times would come and you promise that good times are to come. Train us well through the pressure of these bad times so that we may receive the heavenly inheritance you have promised.”

—Sermon 113A.11

If you have ever wondered what Christian humility and real faith look like, here is a brief example. As Augustine wisely points out, life’s pressures will bring out our true selves, for good or for ill. How are you holding up under the pressure of life? Are you trying to do it by yourself or are you asking God for help?

No one knows Christ better than Paul, nor surpassed him in the careful example he gave of what anyone should be who bears Christ’s name. Paul teaches us the power of Christ’s name when he calls him the power and wisdom of God, our peace, the unapproachable light where God dwells, our expiation and redemption, our great high priest, our paschal sacrifice, our propitiation; when he declares him to be the radiance of God’s glory, the very pattern of his nature, the creator of all ages, our spiritual food and drink, the rock and the water, the bedrock of our faith, the cornerstone, the visible image of the invisible God. He goes on to speak of him as the mighty God, the head of the body, the Church, the firstborn of the new creation, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, the firstborn of the dead, the eldest of many children; he tells us that Christ is the mediator between God and humankind, the only-begotten Son crowned with glory and honor, the Lord of glory, the beginning of all things, the king of justice and of peace, the king of the whole universe, ruling a realm that has no limits. The cumulative force [of these various names and titles] will give some conception of the marvelous content of the name “Christ,” revealing to us his inexpressible majesty, insofar as our minds and thoughts can comprehend it.

Since, by the goodness of God, we who are called “Christians” have been granted the honor of sharing this name, the greatest, the highest, the most sublime of all names, it follows that each of the titles that express its meaning should be clearly reflected in us. If we are not to lie when we call ourselves “Christians,” we must bear witness to it by our way of living.

—Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa (late 4th century), Treatise on Christian Perfection 46

Nothing can restore hope to us except your [God’s] mercy, known since you began to transform us. You know how great a transformation you have brought about. You cured me in the first place of my lust for self-justification to show yourself propitious [having a good chance for success] to all my other iniquities; you heal all my diseases, you redeem my life from corruptions, crown me with compassion and mercy, and satisfy my long with good things (Psalm 102:3-5). By fear of you, you repressed my pride and by your yoke you made my neck submissive; now I carry that yoke, and it is gentle, exactly as your promised and as you made it (Matthew 11:30).

—Augustine, Confessions 10.36.58

It is not without reason or by chance that we worship towards the East. Since God is spiritual light, and Christ in the Scriptures is called the Sun of Righteousness and the Dayspring, the East is the direction that must be assigned to his worship. Moreover, the Scripture also says that God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man and the woman whom he had formed, and when they had transgressed his command he expelled them and made them dwell over against the delights of Paradise, which clearly is the West. So then, we worship God seeking and striving after our old homeland. Moreover, Christ, when he hung on the cross, had his face turned towards the West, and so we worship, striving after him. And when he was received again into Heaven he was borne towards the East, and thus his apostles worship him, and thus he will come again in the way in which they beheld him going towards Heaven. So then, in expectation of his coming we worship towards the East. But this tradition of the apostles is unwritten. For much that has been handed down to us by tradition is unwritten.

—John of Damascus (ca. 760), The Fount of Knowledge 3, On the Orthodox Faith 4