***I was working on the sabbath lesson late last week, and this was the first thing I did. I reworked the lesson to make it more kid-friendly. But I thought you might like to read this too.
Believe!
Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? John 16:31
If you tell a man there are 30 trillion stars in the sky, he’ll believe you. If you tell him the paint is wet on the park bench, he will touch it to see if you’re telling him the truth.
Belief is such a funny thing. If you don’t believe me, google “Is the moon hollow?” There are all kinds of bizarre ideas about the moon, whether it’s hollow or not, how it got to be where it is, and if it could be, in reality, an alien spaceship. In the book Who Built the Moon, the author, Alan Butler, emphatically states the following: “One day humanity will have to go back in time 4.6 billion years to build Earth's Moon!” Because he doesn’t believe in the Creator, and because he knows the Moon didn’t evolve (because there are too many coincidences for it to be coincidental), he believes that some day in the future, mankind will have to go back in time to create the moon from the earth’s surface so that life will be possible on the Earth. Don’t bother going back to read that again; it won’t make any more sense the second time around.
So what do you believe? The Newsboys sing
We believe in God the Father
We believe in Jesus Christ
We believe in the Holy Spirit
And He's given us new life
We believe in the crucifixion
We believe that He conquered death
We believe in the resurrection
And He's comin' back again, we believe.
We could talk about each one of these statements for a long time, what it means to believe in God the Father, etc. The truth is, if you really believe in these things, it becomes obvious in your life.
Remember the scene in Facing the Giants when the assistant coach tells Coach Taylor that he’s on board with what Coach Taylor’s telling the team? He says, “And if they get ahold of it, it’ll change their lives.”
That’s the thing. If you really believe something, it makes a difference in how you live your life. Even in ASL, the sign for believe is pointing to the head with the right index finger and then joining hands as if taking hold of something. Cathy Rice says, “It’s knowledge in your head that you grab hold of.”
So what do you believe?
Jesus had told his disciples many things the night he was betrayed by Judas. He’d told them that he was going to prepare a place for them, that He was sending the Comforter to them, that they were to remain in the vine, that He had come from the Father and was going back to the Father. So then, the disciples said that they got it; they believed He had come from God. But Jesus knew that they still didn’t believe like they thought they did. They hadn’t taken hold of that knowledge to the point where it would keep them from abandoning Jesus when He was arrested. It hadn’t yet truly changed their lives.
So what do you believe? Do you believe that God is God? Do you believe that He is Sovereign, His laws are holy and righteous and good, and that Jesus is coming back to establish His kingdom? If your belief hasn’t changed your life, then maybe you don’t really believe. Maybe you have knowledge that you haven’t really taken hold of yet. However, if you obey God when it’s not popular or easy, if you do what is right even when no one else is looking, if you seek to honor God is everything you think, say, and do, then perhaps you have taken hold of that knowledge - because James tells us, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). A belief that doesn’t change your behavior is useless, worthless.
We have to know what we believe. We have to see evidence in our lives that we do truly believe that thing. It has to be something we take hold of so firmly that it changes our lives. Otherwise, we’re just playing church. We’re just acting like Christians. We might as well believe that the moon is going to be built by humans who, sometime in the future, will travel back in time to construct the moon out of the Earth’s surface.
It might be a good thing to ask ourselves the same question Jesus asked His disciples: Do you now believe?
Believe!
Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? John 16:31
If you tell a man there are 30 trillion stars in the sky, he’ll believe you. If you tell him the paint is wet on the park bench, he will touch it to see if you’re telling him the truth.
Belief is such a funny thing. If you don’t believe me, google “Is the moon hollow?” There are all kinds of bizarre ideas about the moon, whether it’s hollow or not, how it got to be where it is, and if it could be, in reality, an alien spaceship. In the book Who Built the Moon, the author, Alan Butler, emphatically states the following: “One day humanity will have to go back in time 4.6 billion years to build Earth's Moon!” Because he doesn’t believe in the Creator, and because he knows the Moon didn’t evolve (because there are too many coincidences for it to be coincidental), he believes that some day in the future, mankind will have to go back in time to create the moon from the earth’s surface so that life will be possible on the Earth. Don’t bother going back to read that again; it won’t make any more sense the second time around.
So what do you believe? The Newsboys sing
We believe in God the Father
We believe in Jesus Christ
We believe in the Holy Spirit
And He's given us new life
We believe in the crucifixion
We believe that He conquered death
We believe in the resurrection
And He's comin' back again, we believe.
We could talk about each one of these statements for a long time, what it means to believe in God the Father, etc. The truth is, if you really believe in these things, it becomes obvious in your life.
Remember the scene in Facing the Giants when the assistant coach tells Coach Taylor that he’s on board with what Coach Taylor’s telling the team? He says, “And if they get ahold of it, it’ll change their lives.”
That’s the thing. If you really believe something, it makes a difference in how you live your life. Even in ASL, the sign for believe is pointing to the head with the right index finger and then joining hands as if taking hold of something. Cathy Rice says, “It’s knowledge in your head that you grab hold of.”
So what do you believe?
Jesus had told his disciples many things the night he was betrayed by Judas. He’d told them that he was going to prepare a place for them, that He was sending the Comforter to them, that they were to remain in the vine, that He had come from the Father and was going back to the Father. So then, the disciples said that they got it; they believed He had come from God. But Jesus knew that they still didn’t believe like they thought they did. They hadn’t taken hold of that knowledge to the point where it would keep them from abandoning Jesus when He was arrested. It hadn’t yet truly changed their lives.
So what do you believe? Do you believe that God is God? Do you believe that He is Sovereign, His laws are holy and righteous and good, and that Jesus is coming back to establish His kingdom? If your belief hasn’t changed your life, then maybe you don’t really believe. Maybe you have knowledge that you haven’t really taken hold of yet. However, if you obey God when it’s not popular or easy, if you do what is right even when no one else is looking, if you seek to honor God is everything you think, say, and do, then perhaps you have taken hold of that knowledge - because James tells us, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). A belief that doesn’t change your behavior is useless, worthless.
We have to know what we believe. We have to see evidence in our lives that we do truly believe that thing. It has to be something we take hold of so firmly that it changes our lives. Otherwise, we’re just playing church. We’re just acting like Christians. We might as well believe that the moon is going to be built by humans who, sometime in the future, will travel back in time to construct the moon out of the Earth’s surface.
It might be a good thing to ask ourselves the same question Jesus asked His disciples: Do you now believe?
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