I Believe. Do You?
I Believe. Do you?
Time flies. Days pass so quickly. Weeks disappear and months fade away. Stop and take just a moment to realize how old you are. Can you believe it? Stop and look at today’s date. Can you believe it is here so quickly? Now, reflect for a few minutes and think about what consumes most of you…your time, your energy, your thoughts, your attention? Be honest with yourself. Is it your ambition to succeed? Is it your stress level and the fact that you have too much on your plate? Is it your problems? It is your desire for perfection – perfect house, perfect marriage, and perfect children? Maybe it is chaos. You are consumed by chaos. What do you think? What is consuming your time? We are only promised a vapor of time here. It is short. What we do with it matters. When this blog began – I promised that together we would focus on letting go of all that did not matter and together would work to master what did matter. Well in celebration of Easter – please permit me to cut to the chase, get to the bottom line, be honest – plain and simple. Jesus is what matters. Living our lives for Him matters. Believing in Him matters. I believe. Do you?
Believe. Have you ever stopped to think about the ways we use this word? If someone were to ask me, “Is it going to rain tomorrow?” I might answer, “I believe it is.” Used in that situation, my “believe” would just mean “I think so” or “maybe”. Then we use the word –believe- to let someone know we accept their story as true. We might casually say, “I believe you.” We teach our children to make-believe and use their imagination. No one is better at that than my granddaughter, Macie. She has an incredible imagination. And then we might say something like, “I believe. Do you?” As Christ followers we say, “I believe Jesus is the Son of God. I believe He died for my sins. I believe it is only through grace that I can be saved. I believe He arose from the grave and is coming again.” But does our “believe” leave any room for doubt? Does our “believe” say that we just accept that these things did happen? Does our “believe” wonder it this is real or make-believe? Let’s think back to what consumes our time and we will find the answer – the truth – about what we believe.
You see, it is not enough to just “believe” in Jesus. Even Satan believes in Him. Our “believe” needs to represent so much more. John 1:12 tells us
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
“Believe in His name”? What does that mean? Well scholars tell us that here “name” does not refer to the term by which He is called. This is referring to what His name stands for – the Lord is salvation. So this is telling us to believe that Jesus is the Word, the life and the Light. He is the Christ, the Son of God. Our “believe” should mean accept. It should mean trust. It should mean submit. Our “believe” should mean that we have trusted Jesus as our Savior, invited Him into our Heart, made Him Lord of our Life and are now living for Him. By believing – truly believing – we can become a child of the King. We can be an heir to the throne. We can have a future that is secure. I believe. Do you?
Let’s go back and talk about what is consuming us – our time, our energy and our focus. That needs to change – wouldn’t you agree? Let’s lock arms and commit that during the short time we have left here – let’s become consumed with Christ. Let’s let Him fill us up! Let’s spend time with Him – a lot more time with Him. Let’s submit to Him. Let’s give Him reign in our life. That is the only way we will ever find peace, joy and contentment. Let’s be honest – it is only by living out His plan for our life – we can ever hope to experiences true success. We can always get the things done that He puts on our plate. Perfection will elude us this side of Heaven. It will never happen. Let it go! And if your answer was chaos – Jesus is the only cure. He can calm our chaos just like He calmed the raging sea. If we are not careful, the world we live in can distract us and soften our “believe”. We can cease to “believe”, to understand our dependence on Him. But…the more time I spend in the Word – the more I understand how desperately I need more and more Jesus in my life. Don’t you? After all … He IS what matters.
I believe. Do You?
I love music. Check out these 2 videos about what we believe...
http://youtu.be/FtPmX7e_Rpw
http://youtu.be/K7iXfibKF2A