Passage Read: Romans 8-9
Meditation Verse: 9:18
Thought
God chooses to whom He will grant mercy, and He chooses who's hearts He will harden. That's the biggest reason that salvation is not by our works. There may be those who faithfully perform all the rituals, yet they are not saved. And there may be those who do not do all the things "righteous people" think they're supposed to do, yet they are saved. The difference is between receiving mercy and having a hardened heart. The difference is between a soft heart, which is given out of God's mercy, and a hard heart. The one who has received mercy, it shows by their softened heart, hungry and eager to know and do God's will, to walk in step with His Spirit. The one who has not received mercy, whose heart is still hard, has not come to humble themselves before God, but expects to be received by God because of their diligent obedience to what they think is required of them. They are not tenderhearted towards the Lord, but arrogant, insisting on their own interpretation and determination of what God should accept. They actually hate God's revealed will, either having nothing to do with it or investing themselves in church life while sitting in judgment over God's revealed Word. The real evidence of salvation is how we treat God and His Scriptures.
Application
I can have confidence in my salvation if I'm tenderhearted toward the Word of God, if I submit myself to every word and instruction because I know it is the word and will of God, if I endevor to justify God and His Word and live by it. But if I resist the things He has instructed and revealed through the Bible, I should have serious doubts about the state of my heart, about whether I have received mercy or if I have been rejected and hardened. This is also the clearest test to discern the state of another's heart: How do they treat God's Word? They may be a leader in God's church, but if they quarrel with and resist and even teach against what God's Word teaches His people to be and do, they are rejected, not saved. If they are a complete unbeliever and they hear the Gospel but reject it, their heart is still hard and I have no guarantee that God will soften them. That's why the apostles could move on without hesitation when a person or community refused to welcome the Gospel. But if someone shows interest and openness, God is perhaps softening their heart. Time will tell: They will grow softer toward God's Word or else keep or increase their resistance to all it teaches. Not everyone who claims to love God actually does, but everyone who loves His Word and abides by it, these show God's mercy granted to them in the softening of their hearts.