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)
Mark 16:17-18 (Jesus) And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
Matt 7:21 (Jesus) Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
A crucial evidence we’ve believed is that we speak, by the Spirit, what we have believed.
Matt 10:27 (Jesus) Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops (as the living water of John 7:38).
2 Cor 4:13 And since we have the same Spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak.
Acts 4:31 …They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
Why is it crucial to speak God’s words by the Holy Spirit? It means we’re bearing fruit:
John 15:5-6 (Jesus) I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not live in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. (He was a true branch, that is, he was born again; but lived in his flesh and not in Christ)
Believers are known by their fruit, by their living words; I must live “in Christ” to bear fruit.
An example of one who believed God words, spoke them and God brought them to pass:
God’s people, Judah, because of their unfaithfulness to God, were overcome by their enemies and taken away captive to Babylon. Many Christians today are living in Babylon.
Jer 29:10-11 (Jeremiah speaking) For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Judah’s captivity by Babylon began in 606 BC (Jeremiah died in +585 BC). One of the captives, Daniel, 69 years later, read Jeremiah’s words and prayed that they be fulfilled:
Ezra 1:1-2 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation… “The LORD God of heaven has…commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah”.
Cyrus reigned in Babylon from 538 to 530 BC. Due to his proclamation, the first Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem in 536 BC, after 606 to 536 BC or 70 years of captivity!
Jesus poses a sobering question concerning how much true believing there really is:
Luke 18:8 (Jesus) When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?
Heaven and earth are either connected - by faith, by believing; or separated - by doubt:
Approximately one hundred years ago an English preacher named G. A. Studdert Kennedy wrote: “The distance between Heaven and Earth is not measured in miles or in time, but in terms of faith or of doubt. If we do not begin to find Heaven while we are here on earth (by believing with the heart God’s words) we certainly won’t find it hereafter”.
Ps 9:10 And they that know Your name (Your word) will put their trust in You.. KJV
Ps 5:11 …Let all those that put their trust in You rejoice…let them also that love Your name (that love Your word) be joyful in You (be joyful “in Christ”). KJV
