The Need To Believe

Scripture:  John 5:24 (NASB)  -  Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.                                                                          

Do you remember a couple of years ago when there were several billboards scattered around the city with the giant letters ‘BELIEVE?’ The signs were part of an ambitious campaign to motivate Baltimore citizens from every socio-economic strata to do at least one thing to fight the growing drug addiction epidemic.  While the campaign stimulated a modest amount of activism on the part of everyday citizens and the expenditure of vast sums of corporate dollars, it reinforced at least two central truths that are prevalent in God’s Word:  that (1) genuine faith does not exist apart from action. Faith without works is dead, says James 2:17, and (2) it is not enough to merely have faith in faith, or to believe for beliefs’ sake.

Humankind is inherently “religious.” we’ve all been implanted with the CAPACITY to believe in Him who is the great “I Am.” Romans 1:20, 21 points this out; however, faith of the highest order and that pays the highest dividends, here and hereafter, comes only from trusting in the word of Christ.  (Romans 10:17)  A belief in the efforts of people—while  such may be of genuinely good intent—will be short-lived in the long run—if the root of the problem (i.e.,  the sin issue from a biblical worldview) is not addressed; and those sin-saturated roots of cultural and societal disintegration are so intricately entangled today that only the One referred to as the Great Physician can straighten out all that’s crooked. (Isaiah 45:2)  What can any of us who trust in Christ do?  We can do our small part one day at a time, in our generation, reflecting our belief in the only One who’s able to do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all we can ever ask or think!  

Prayer:  Dear Lord, help us to remember each day that our faith and labor in Your Son are never in vain. (1 Cor. 15:58)  Thank You for  this precious saving faith.  In Christ’s name—Amen!

(By Denise Diggs)