Am I A Believer

What is God’s number one requirement from you and me, so that we may do His works?

John 6:28-29 Then they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent." (Here its - Believe in Jesus)

What exactly does Jesus mean by saying that “I should believe in Him”? He answers:

John 5:24 …I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life (now He says hear My word and believe in God – why?)

Because, any faith I have in God came because my heart heard and believed some of His words; if I continue to believe, those words live in my heart; but not, if I stop believing:

John 5:38 (Jesus) But you do not have His word living in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe (notice now its believe Him and not just in Him also, it makes clear anyone truly believing Him, has His words living in them).

1 Thes 2:13 ….The word of God which you heard from us...which also mightily works in you who believe (This is the work of God that we believe Him, that is, we continue to believe His words, so they can live in us and make us like Christ).

Belief and unbelief are both matters of the heart, meaning, from within a person’s spirit:

Heb 3:12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;

Rom 10:10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

One of our greatest deceptions is to presume that our intellectual agreement with some of God’s words, prompting us to say “I believe” constitutes heart faith – it does not. My brain is natural, God’s words are spiritual; they must enter my spirit for true faith to arise.

What are some of the things that will completely shut down my ability to believe God?

• My not forgiving someone – causing my own forgiveness by God to be revoked.

• My yielding to fear, worry or care thoughts, which are the opposite of trusting God.

• By my disobeying God; all sin is this, it separates me from God, makes me unrighteous

• By not honoring my conscience, my heart's voice, which therefore condemns me.

• By being proud – Jesus asks how can you believe who seek honor from people?

• Preferring to live by sense and reason, incapable of faith; and not living “in Christ”.

• Being a friend of the world, and therefore making myself, God says, His enemy.

• Allowing myself to come under the thought influence of demons, who hate God.

Since my ability to believe God is directly linked to hearing and retaining God’s words in my heart; my enemies, Satan and his demons, who don’t want me to believe God, have specific strategies to separate me from God’s words and thus nullify my faith in God.

Matt 13:19 (Jesus) When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it (he wouldn’t wait to discern God’s understanding of it), then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart-

Matt 13:20-21 …He who hears the word and…has no root in himself (the word couldn’t take root in his heart because of areas of hardness, stones,) when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word (events or people that oppose his faith, stirred up by Satan), immediately he gets offended.

Mark 4:19 (Or) The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in (to his heart because he believed such thoughts sown by Satan, and they) choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

True believers don’t believe occasionally; but continue to believe more of God’s words:

John 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Jews which believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are My disciples indeed”;

1 Tim 4:16 (Paul) Take heed to...the doctrine (God’s words). Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you. KJV

What are some of the evidences that you and I really are believers and not pretenders?

John 10:27 (Jesus) My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

John 14:12 (Jesus) Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater (in number) works than these…

John 7:38 (Jesus) “He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." But this He spoke concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would receive…(they will speak living words inspired by the Holy Spirit)