Why
isn't it easy to believe in Jesus Christ?
If it were easy, there would be more people who believe. For those of us who believe, it is hard to
comprehend why others don't believe.
Believers believe they are absolutely hopeless without
Jesus.
Perhaps
that’s the catch. Our human nature will
do anything to believe that it is up to us.
John Ascroft's infamous quote, Islam is a religion in which God requires
you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends
his son to die for you. Does make
you wonder why someone would reject Christianity.
It’s
easy to believe in yourself and your own abilities; it is much more difficult to
believe that the God of the universe has done it all for you. If you truly believe that, you will believe
radically different things about the world.
Church attendance does not make you a believer. Joyce Meyer loves to say: I can sit in the garage all day long and that
doesn't make me a car any more than someone sitting in a church makes them a
believer. She is exactly right. Believing is hard. Believing penetrates to the core of your
soul.
You can
check your beliefs; there are easy tools.
The first place you can look to see what you really believe is by opening
up your bank statement. Where do you
spend your money? Matthew 6:24 says that
you cannot serve money and God. Does the
destination for your money reveal God’s priorities for your life? Another check for your belief system is the
closeness you feel to God. Does it feel
as if He has made His home in you? How
would you know that? John 14:23 says:
Jesus replied, Anyone who loves me will
obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make
our home with them. Do you hate anyone? That is another litmus test for belief
according to 1 John 2:9—Anyone who claims
to be in the light but hates a
brother or sister is still in
the darkness. Believing that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God and that He came to earth to live and die as a
propitiation for our sin does not come easy.
It certainly didn't come easy for Jesus and; though it may sound easy for
believers, it is impossible without God’s help.
Believing in God’s love for me has gotten easier the longer I have
practiced it. However, I would not say
it is easy. Even now it is not easy to focus my thoughts around the wonderful
Divine presence that is promised to be with me in my every movement as I write
just now. It is much easier to watch the
clock so I get the devotion written by the deadline or to think about the people
who will read this week’s devotion than it is to really be one with God in
writing to you today.
Jesus
knows that most won't believe. In John
5:64 He said: Yet there
are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus had known from the beginning which
of them did not believe and who would betray him. Jesus knew that it was not easy to
believe. He asked Peter if he was going
to believe, to which Peter answered: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the
words of eternal life. Perhaps that’s when you know you really believe—when
there is no other place to go.
Another litmus test for belief? Your calendar.
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