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)
.
|
