Believe!

“You’re asking me to believe that”? You may have heard those exact words spoken. It’s true, with the falsehood and untrustworthy attitudes and actions that we see, it does make it more difficult to believe and trust anything!

What does it even mean to believe? It means that you accept something as truth or you feel certain it is truth. Believing is something we need to do without necessarily seeing tangible results, especially when it comes down to spiritual and Biblical truths. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”. Hebrews 11:1

So are we going to believe just because someone told us or said it would be good for us and then not believe when things are not going so well? We live in a time where so many things are questionable. In fact it’s usually the hard times that make us start to think about what truth is and what we do believe. Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we start to search for what is real and true.

When it comes to believing in Jesus, many of us can say “yes, we believe in Jesus”, but do we genuinely believe or is it just a simple recognition that Jesus is the Savior? When it comes to salvation we cannot earn it. It is an undeserved free gift that is given through faith, and it is by God’s grace that we are forgiven and saved. It is only through Jesus’ shed blood on the cross that this grace is possible. When we believe and acknowledge that there is a God and Jesus is the son of God, in biblical terms there is much more to the full meaning of the word believe. The Bible said that “even the demon’s believed and tremble!” James 2:19. Yes demons acknowledge that there is a God but they do not trust Him.

I like what Greg Laurie wrote in one of His devotionals. He said “To believe means to hold on to, to cling to. It also means to let go of. So if the Bible speaks of both letting go of one thing and taking hold of another. We let go of our sin and take hold of Christ and Christ alone, to save us. It is not Jesus plus good works that saves us. Rather it is just Christ.” When our hearts are changed because of our love for Christ and all that He has done we will want to freely serve God and obey His teachings that are putting belief into action.

Before we put our trust in Jesus we are headed to eternal judgement, but if we believe and put our trust in God we will be saved and have eternal life through Him.

As we prepare and celebrate Palm Sunday and Easter let us ask ourselves whether we truly believe everything that Jesus taught us and came to do, how He died for all the wrong that we have done and was raised to life so we could have life!

His sacrifice for us was great. He loved us so much, “For God so loved the world that He gave us His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” May we make the choice to believe by accepting Him into our lives as our Savior living out our salvation, trusting Him with lives that are changed for His glory!