What's The Password?

E

arly in December, I joined the ranks of thousands searching for that perfect Christmas present.  One afternoon, on my way home from work, I decided to swing by one of the local malls for a few minutes to see about the last remaining items on my list.  One look at the line of cars waiting to get into the mall, as well as the stack of vehicles wanting to return to the highway, instantly told me that stopping by the mall was a bad idea.

Not to be thwarted in my endeavor, I decided to use my trusty computer to peruse the Internet.  This proved to be vastly superior to standing in long lines or scrambling for the last item on the bargain table.  In the comfort of my own room, using my own computer, I was free to shop to my heart's content.  The only thing missing was the atmosphere.  Christmas music playing on the radio and a hot cup of tea are nice but they don't really do a great deal for getting you in the mood for shopping.

As I continued browsing on the Internet, I visited several sites, which asked me for my user id and a password.  This is to ensure that no one could use my account without proper authorization and identification.  Although the sites request a user id, it is the password that permits the user to access the various services offered by the site.  Anyone could make up or borrow my user id.  So, to make sure that I am the one accessing the information, they require a password.  The password, which has been predetermined, must match the user or the deal is off.  In essence, someone could say he was Blake Carpenter, but unless they had the correct password, they could never gain access, no matter what id they were using.

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time I entered my user id and password, an interesting thought occurred to me.  So often we use the term Christian to identify ourselves.  Someone might ask if we are a Christian and we quickly respond, "Yes!"  However, if we were to logon and attempt to access God's resources, would we be allowed entrance?  For user id, we would type Christian, but would we have the proper password?

The Apostle Paul spoke to this point when addressing the Christians in Rome.  He taught them that simply saying we are Christian isn't what counts.  God is not interested in lip service; He is interested in heart service.  Look at his words in Romans 10:9-10, "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. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

There are two distinct parts to this verse of scripture.  First, Paul says we must confess the Lord Jesus with our mouths.  This is the same as our user id.  When asked if we are a Christian, we answer with a 'yes'. When we do this, we identify ourselves as belonging to Jesus Christ, having accepted him as our savior.  However, confession with the mouth is only the first part of the process.  There are many people who use the word Christian but the second step is the real determining factor.

The second part of the process is believing in our hearts that Jesus Christ is God's son and that God raised him from the dead.  It is the mouth that confesses but the heart that believes.  In order to gain access to God, we must believe in him.   Hebrews 11:6 reminds us that in order to come to God, we must believe that he is.  If the mouth provides our user id, the heart provides the password.  When we come to God and identify ourselves as his children, the condition of our hearts indicates whether or not we belong to him.  If we have accepted Jesus Christ as our savior and if we believe that he died and was raised from the dead, then we are saved.  His blood, his presence in our hearts is the password that gains us access to God's boundless resources.

Paul, however, is not the only one to make this claim.  Jesus, himself, teaches that lip service alone does not ensure access to God; only doing His will and accepting Jesus as the way to salvation allow us to experience the fullness of God's grace and redemption.  Matthew 7:21 teaches us a valuable lesson about lip service: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven."  There you have it.  The user id, while important, means nothing without the proper password.  Can you logon today?