The scripture for today, October 8 (10/8), is Romans 10:8f as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Indeed, the word is in our mouth through confession of our faith in Jesus, and in our heart for truly believing it and not just saying it.

Some say we are not saved by works, and it is true in the sense that we cannot go around doing so many good works that God will feel obligated to take us into his home. We can never be good enough because we still sin and those sins need to be washed away.

In the sense that we do not have to do anything to be saved, it is not true. Jesus took care of that impossible part. But for our part, he said faith is a work: “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: To believe in the one he has sent’ ” (John 6:29).

To many faithful Christians, there are times in our life that faith is indeed hard work. We are beset with so many problems that we begin to wonder, “Does Jesus really care, as he claimed?”.

Let us continue to work at our faith. We will have our ups and our downs. Sometimes our faith will be strong and sometimes weak. But remember, even when we doubt God, God never doubts us.