Believeth part 1
We have known and believed the love of Christ. That's the Divine Order of things. Because you can't believe something you don't know. But believing the truth that you DO know is what makes it true... for you. Look at Mark 9:23, "Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." Now, in context, I think Jesus was talking about Himself as "him that believeth." Because He was answering the concern of a man who asked him if he could anything to help. So basically Jesus was saying, "If you believe in me... all things are possible. Because I believe." We've been talking quite a bit about THE measure of faith. About how Jesus GAVE us the measure of faith by being faithful. How we can trust in Him because He proved Himself trustworthy. Basically, what I think I'm trying to say is, "And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God" (Mark 11:22). We put a lot of emphasis on faith. As if "more" faith or "strong" faith is something to strive for. We put our faith in faith. When in reality all our faith is supposed to do is get us to Jesus' faith. We believe IN HIM, and then He takes over and makes it happen. (And, of course, by "makes it happen" I mean "MADE it happen 2,000 years ago on the old rugged cross. What really happens is a manifestation of what already happened. It is uncovered, or brought to light. We don't need a change. We need to see the change that took place.) So, as always, it's not about what WE do, it's about what HE did. It's not about believing in believing. It's about believing in God. Look at John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Life comes from believing in the One who IS life. Remember, His life is the light of men. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We get so twisted around when we make it about anything and everything else. It's about life. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. And what makes life abudant... of course... is love. To live is to love and to love is to live. Life and love are not only connected, they are the same thing! But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I want to define the term so we can dig in to it for the next few days. "Believeth" in John 3:16 is number 4100 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing), that is, credit; by implication to entrust, put in trust with." And I think many times that's where we fall apart. We have trust issues. Somebody burns us, and then we're forevermore afraid of the fire. Even though, Spiritually speaking, the fire is God! The fire is love! And it doesn't burn away anything we don't need anyway. I'm convinced--by personal experience--that you can do a lot of damage to yourself by hanging on to something that you ought to let go of. It's like a rope. You hold on too tight and you can get rope-burn. You think you're doing right, but you're really hurting yourself (and others). What we need to do is, again, have faith in God. He gave us THE measure of faith so that we might have faith in Him. He proved Himself faithful. We put our trust in Him because He has proved Himself trustworthy. He came with something better than we could ask or even think. A more excellent way. Escape from the bondage of sin and death. He came with LIFE. HIS abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life!