Don't Stop Believing

In our passage Sunday we saw Jesus calling the people to believe in the Light while He was there (John 12:36).

This is really the grand theme of the Gospel of John, as it states in John 20:31: "[B]ut these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (ESV).

Jesus is always leading us towards believing in Him, as seen by using the term believing or believe 98 times in John’s Gospel.

In talking with some “believers” recently, we agreed that there is a tendency for us to think of believing as something we did on the day of our salvation, which of course in true in part.

However, we are called to believe in Jesus, and it is the process of knowing Him better, following Him, and loving Him—and this is an everyday, every moment need and call.

As the old hymn says, “We need Thee every hour.”

As life comes at us, both the ups and downs, we need His wisdom, His forgiveness and cleansing, His direction, His control of our lives, His empowering, and the list never ends. We need Him all the time! So we stay in this condition of believing what He has told us about Himself, His Father, His Spirit.

That gives us a two-fold approach:

On one hand, we need to be to be growing in the Word and through His Spirit to know Him better. Paul said that this was his great pursuit even after years of walking with the Lord (Philippians 3), not just memorizing facts about Him but swallowing those truths so they become part of your view of life.

Second, we stay in that position of drawing, listening, focusing on Christ every moment of every day. This is hard to do, and we need to cling to each other in the church to help us keep this focus.

Why not start fresh today? Set your eyes on Jesus and what you’ve been learning about Him. Assume, by faith (believing), that His presence is working in your life, even through difficult circumstances. Encourage those you come across today to do the same. It is a life of no regrets.