Jesus is Lord

Romans 10:9-10 says: 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.

That is the most powerful thing you could ever say, because once you believe that and say that, you will have eternal life with our Father. I don't know if you have ever had the opportunity to be with someone when they gave their life to Christ or have ever played a role in their decision, but if you have there is really no other feeling that compares to that.

I want to take some time to tell you a story about how that happened in my life nearly a month ago. Again, I want you to know that I am not telling you his to hype myself up, I am telling you so that you can understand some of the amazing ways that God works.

It was August 9th, the day of my 21st birthday. As texts and messages kept coming in throughout the day, I would skim through everything but not reply because I was just going to wait to do that until the next day or something like that. I happened to open up one of the texts from one of my teammates and the text said, "happy birthday man. This is random but I just had a dream it was really weird but for some reason you were with me when I gave my life to Christ which I thought was pretty cool so I wanted to tell you that." My initial reaction was like woah...I had never had any conversation with this teammate about faith and we had known each other for the past year and a half. I thought it was so cool. So I began to think, how is God working in this situation right now? I didn't know if this teammate had ever given his life to Christ before so I was contemplating on whether or not to ask him. I felt God's presence and that was my cue to ask him. I encourage you that whenever you feel God's presence that you should act upon it. Anyways, I asked him and he told me that he had not done that yet and that he was trying to find the way. This got me super excited. I was like dude!! I would love to talk to you more about that sometime. We continued to text and he told me that he saw a date in his dream and the date was August 18th. The wheels in my head were turning and if God gives an exact date like that, I was sure that he was going to do everything possible to make it happen on that day. I went on to say, "how cool would it be if we got together on the 18th and got some dinner and just talked about every thing?" He was totally down for that. I was so excited every single day leading up to that. I was also nervous too, like what was I going to say? I knew that God was going to fill me with the words to say and he did just that. There were a couple of people that new about this and the dream that he had and that we were going to talk about, those people played a key role with their prayers as well. I saw him a couple of days before because he came up to Bethel and we got in some really good workouts together. Every conversation we had leading up to that day had something to do with that dream. He told me more about his dream, he said that in his dream, he was flying like he was going to heaven but he couldn't make it all the way there, and I was right there beside him to help him. Every detail of this story gives me chills every time I think about it. Every aspect of it had God written all over it. The 18th rolls around and today is the day. We met in Fort Wayne, Indiana at a Mexican restaurant called Cebolla's. It was around 2 o'clock when we got there and I had this set of pictures that had a series of questions that went along with it. I knew that this was going to be a great way to get the conversation going and a great way to get to know each other a little more and on a deeper level. Now before we started with that, I told him that if he felt like it was time to accept Christ into his heart at anytime that he should just tell me and we would pray that prayer, because it wasn't going to be anything that I said, it was going to be something that God said through me. So we went through these pictures and talk for probably two hours and we are smashing chips and salsa the entire time. It was perfect. The final question that went along with the pictures was this. "When you think about your spiritual life of journey, which image best represents what you wish were true?" I should probably mention that these pictures are of the most random things, and however you interpret them is how God wants you to. There was a picture of a clock on there and he had chosen that because he believe that it was time to give his life to Christ. I got chills and I was shaking and it was an indescribable feeling. So I asked him if he was ready and he was 100% sure that he was. I said, "let's pray." We prayed, he declared with his mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believed in his heart that God raised him from the dead." We said amen, and we looked at each other with our teary eyes and I told him that we are brothers forever. It was one of the most powerful moments I have experienced in my walk with Christ.

I remember the feeling after, just wanted more. I received a text that said, "God is using you in mighty ways." I replied with, "it's all God!!!" and that person texted back and reminded me that we are his hands and feet. Such a perfect reminder.

I will never forget this. I encourage you remember this verse. Romans 10:15 says: And can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"