Believe, Receive & Love

In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking Him among themselves and saying, "He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!" Those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him. (Mark 15:31, 32 NASB)

Referenced Scriptures: Mark 15:31-32, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Hebrews 11:6

In Mark's account of the Passion Story I was drawn to this portion of scripture and couldn't get it out out of my head this morning. When Jesus was there on the cross taking our place all the "religious" folk gathered around and had the audacity to say to let this Christ now come down so that we may see and believe. They gave Christ and ultimatum? Really!? Come down and then we'll believe you are who you say you are.

We see this and think, how dare they, but you know I myself have found myself in the past knowing and unknowingly giving very similar ultimatums. How many of us have said something like this, "Lord, get me through this and then I'll believe your word is true." At other times I find myself not moving in a direction that God clearly showed me to go because I haven't received a sign or confirmation from another source. Another words, I've said by my actions or lack of actions I walk by sight and not by faith. Which is not at all how scripture instructs us to walk (see 2 Corinthians 5:7). We tend to put the sight before the faith; meaning we won't move forward until we can put all the pieces together of how God will do it. The fact of the matter is this walk with the Lord is not meant to be easy if it was then everyone would be true Christians and the world would be in a lot better shape. What type of faith would it take to trust God if He just gave us everything immediately when we asked for it? Don't you think the Creator of everything knows best what we need? (see Matthew 6:8)

At the end of 2010, many of you know, my older brother passed away now the internal battle that the loss of a loved causes is indescribable and there came a point in my faith that I had to make a decision and this event forced this to come to the surface. With the small amount of knowledge that I had learned from scripture and what God has graciously revealed to me; I had to decide what to do with this event that has now taken center-stage in my life? You see some pull away from God during these type of things; I knew I couldn't do that. I know what I'm capable of apart from God and I can't go back there. So I had to say, "Lord, you answered our prayers just as we asked. I choose to believe in You regardless of what happens around me. I don't need to you do anything to prove to me that your there because I know that your Word tells me your there (Hebrews 13:5). Even though there is pain I know you are still in control. I trust that you will work this together for God and that in the end You will get all the honor and glory."

Bottom line, there comes a point in this thing where you either believe it or not. You either believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that he did come to earth, died for the sins of mankind, rose again and will return again one day (as he said he would) or you don't. You can fake it for a while fooling others and yourself but God knows our heart. Our lives should reflect what it is we truly believe. If we are waiting for God to show us a sign or answer a specific prayer before we decide to give him every aspect of our life then we've missed it. There is a level of faith that goes hand in hand with this and if we refuse this aspect of believing in God then as the Word says, "it is impossible to please him" (see Hebrews 11:6). We will go through things while we're here in fallen world, and God's Word is the only constant that we can truly rely on. We don't need God to prove anything to us; this was already done at Calvary by Jesus. Our part in this whole thing is to just believe, receive & love.

Take Care & God Bless,

-E