Do you really believe?

Do you really believe in Jesus Christ? We all do our best, right?

And it's in doing our best that we usually fail. To be truly right with
God, and right in our faith, we need the direct intervention of God's own
Holy Spirit. No man can know God without God's own help. No man can
truly have saving faith in Jesus Christ without God's help.

So when God calls us to Himself, we need to respond with genuine
obedience. When God asks us a question, we need to answer truthfully from
the heart.

Be right with God. Tell the truth. He'll supply whatever is lacking, if
we'll listen to Him, follow Him, and obey Him from the heart.

Consider for just a moment, one of the darkest days in the lives of two
sisters -- Mary and Martha. Their brother had become ill. They had sent
word to Jesus, asking Him to come and help. And then the brother died.

About 4 days after the man was buried, Jesus arrived.

Martha goes out to meet Him, alone. In front of Mary, her sister, Martha
would always be strong. But now, talking with Jesus, she has to be honest
in her disappointment. She says to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my
brother would not have died."

Oh, God, where were You when I really needed You? When I called out to
You, why didn't You help me?

Jesus points, in His remarks, beyond the momentary pain. He sees and
understands the pain, the confusion. He feels the sorrow and loss. But
He has an answer that extends far, far beyond this moment -- into a
distance that has absolutely no horizon.

To Martha, and to each of us, Jesus has some things to say. He also has a
question.

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me,
though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me
shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25,26)

In response to Jesus' comments and question, Martha was quick to answer:
"Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to
come into the world." Martha's answer was an excellent and clear
response, a sound confession of faith. I believe that it came straight
from her heart, unrehearsed and without any pretense at all.

And she isn't the only one to be asked such questions by the Lord. He
asks you and me the same question. And we need to be able to confess,
even in the most difficult circumstances, the same kind of faith.

How rich and alive is your faith?

Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the
one and only Savior that was to come into the world? Do you own Him as
your Lord, your Savior? Do you know Him and have daily fellowship with
Him? Are you at peace with Him, and confident of His goodness and love in
every situation? Do you recognize His perfect righteousness -- that He's
always just and fair in everything He does, and in all that He says?

My own struggle and confusion.

I still remember what it was like to be a young boy in Timbergrove Baptist
Church, down in Texas, many years ago. The true Gospel of Jesus Christ
was often preached from the pulpit, and also shared in many other ways.
Sunday school teachers went over the plan of salvation with us, week after
week. And people would sometimes give their testimonies of what Jesus had
done for them. And there were also special films shown, from time to
time, on a Sunday night, and stories told in youth meetings of how others
had come to know and love Jesus Christ.

I remember those things. But I was lost.

I had already gone forward, during an altar call on a Sunday night, and
told the preacher that I wanted to be saved. He went over the basic
points of the Gospel, and then asked me if I believed that Jesus had died
on the cross for my sins. I said yes.

I mean, I was only ten years old, and I had to take almost everything by
faith. I certainly believed that George Washington had crossed the
Delaware, and that Columbus had sailed to America, and that Russia was a
bad place, and so on. I also believed that Jesus had been born to Mary,
and that He had grown up and died on a cross. And I wanted peace with
God. So I said yes.

My lack of understanding and my lack of faith was not the church's fault.
They were doing their job. But I kept trying to bargain with God. The
night I had gone forward was not the night God had called me to respond in
faith to the Gospel message. I had put it off a week or so.

Making plans and promises.

I had actually come under conviction -- knowing that I really needed to
get right with God -- during a revival, when a visiting evangelist had
been preaching. I don't remember anything the guy had said. But I do
remember what happened at the end of the service. We all stood and sang a
song or two, and the preacher asked if anyone wanted to come down to the
front, to give their life to God, through faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy
Spirit moved powerfully on me that night, compelling me to go forward.
But I gripped the pew in front of me, refusing to budge. There were too
many people packed into the church that night, visitors who had come for
the revival meetings. I just couldn't go down front and stand there, in
front of all those strangers, and admit that I was a sinner in need of
salvation. So I made a bargain with God.

Standing there, knowing in my heart that I needed to obey the Lord's call,
I told God's Spirit what I would do. I promised that I would go forward
and join the church in a week or so, after the revival was over, and all
the visitors had gone. I didn't understand, of course, that God wasn't
trying to get me to simply join the church. God was after my heart, my
whole life. I was lost and on my way to hell. And I needed Jesus Christ
to take my sins away. That's what God was calling me to -- Himself.

A week or so later, I went forward and joined the church, just as I had
promised I would. I was baptized shortly after that. I became a member
of Timbergrove Baptist Church. Everyone congratulated me, and thought of
me as one who had been rescued at a good age -- before all the bad stuff
could come along and ruin my life. I thought of myself as saved --
completely missing the point of so many good sermons that had preached
right there in that same church.

Almost persuaded.

A few weeks later, I was caught shop-lifting in a large department store.
My buddy (who was also a member of the same church) and I had been on a
spree, going from store to store on summer vacation, stealing just about
everything that wasn't nailed down. Being so young, I wasn't arrested,
but my parents had to come pick me up, and so I was grounded for much of
that summer.

In time, the little crimes gave way to bigger crimes, and to more obvious
rebellion against authority and decency and good. By the time I was 13,
I was staying out all night, gone for days. Soon after, I started getting
into drugs, and into all kinds of trouble with the law.

Yet whenever I heard the Gospel being presented, I would just say, "Yeah,
I already did that. Of course I believe." But where faith and
righteousness and joy should have been in my heart, there was only anger
and sin and a deepening dread that something was wrong. Instead of a
peaceful hope of heaven, I had a growing expectation of hell. Soon I was
one of the guys who joked about going to hell -- where all my friends
would be.

"Hey, man, where ya goin'?" Someone would ask, as I went down the street.
"To hell, if I don't change my ways!" I'd answer, laughing.

God loved me, just as He loves you. Jesus had died for me, just as He
died for you. My church had been a faithful witness to me. Folks were
praying for me. But I was still lost and on my way to a dark eternity
without Christ. It would take seven years for me to finally figure that
out. Seven years of sliding deeper and deeper into a life of sin and
crime of every kind.

You see, I did believe that God existed. And I believed that Jesus was
the Son of God, whatever that meant. And I believed that Jesus died on a
cross. I don't think I ever doubted that He had also returned to life on
the third day. And I could plainly see that I was a sinner. The only
missing part was saving faith -- knowing for certain in my heart that
Jesus had done those things for me.

"Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me..."

One night, at the age of 17, the Gospel was presented to me once again.
It was such a familiar story, that I hardly listened. All the basic facts
were given to me again, just as they had been shared with me many times
before. I tried my best to shake them off, to nod in all the right places,
and to tell the people that I was already a Christian believer. But then
the Holy Spirit once again got hold of my heart, calling me to obedient
faith and surrender.

I knew that I needed to tell the truth, to admit that I was lost and in
need of salvation. God was calling me to humble myself before Him, right
there in front of those strangers. I struggled for a very long time, not
saying much to the people in the room with me. Finally, I obeyed God's
Holy Spirit. I told the guys who were sharing the Gospel with me that I
wanted to pray.

I knelt in prayer and confessed my sinful ways and I asked the Lord to
take away my sins. I admitted my need of Jesus Christ, and asked the Lord
to take charge of my whole life. I surrendered to the Lord that night.
And that's when I discovered what saving faith really is. For the first
time in my life, I knew beyond all doubt that I was God's child. I knew
what Christ had done -- for me. He had taken my sins away, and had
reconciled me to God. I was clean. I was new inside. I was free.

Form the brain into the heart.

The "belief" had moved from a mere acknowledgement of some remote
historical event -- a thought in my head -- down into my heart, where it
now lived and burned like a holy fire from God. The Holy Spirit had done
a good and lasting work in me. Christ was now. Life was now. God in
heaven was here and now -- not someday, somewhere, somehow. It was not a
mere change in philosophy or ideas, but a fundamental change in my being.
I had literally been born again, just like Jesus talked about in chapter
three of John's Gospel.

I suppose that I would always before have answered Jesus' question (to
Martha) with a yes. "Yes, Lord, I believe." But now I could answer with
so much more. With my whole heart and mind and soul. Now I really knew
that Jesus was life and salvation and resurrection and everything I would
ever need. He was God in the flesh, the truth and the way, and the life.

Just like He said.

Jim
"But what does it say? 'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your
heart' (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 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." (Romans 10:8-10)