Believing is doing

1- Jesus speaks to believers.

Let’s read some verses of

John chapter 8

30 “As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. 31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

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43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. 46 Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? 47 He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

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51 Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”

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56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” 57 Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.””

POINTS TO LEARN:

True Disciples are those who believe in Christ and abide in His Word (V31). Believers who just believe but do not abide in God’s Word, are not disciples. (V47)
When we come to Christ He will reveal truth to us, and that truth will make us free. (V32)

POINTS TO DISCUSS:

In order to be saved we must believe in Christ, people may think they believe in Christ, but it could be they just have an intellectual faith and not the Biblical faith that will get them saved. This is very important for us to understand because many could have died having only an intellectual faith and not the saving faith. Which means they will not enter Heaven.
Here is another verse that affirm the same truth, if we abide in Christ we are His disciples

John 15:7-8

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

QUESTIONS:

A- What does abiding in His Word mean?

B- If truth makes us free, what is truth making us free from?

C- What is the difference between real faith and intellectual belief?

ANSWERS:

A- The Amplified version say: (John 8:31) “If you abide in My word [continually obeying My teachings and living in accordance with them, then] you are truly My disciples.” So abiding in Him means doing what He says. For example, “go and preach the Gospel,” “love one another,” “we are the righteousness of God in Christ,” etc.

B- In verse 34 we get the answer. Sin makes us slaves and drags us to hell. Truth (The person of Jesus, His Word) sets us free. When we put our faith in the person of Jesus, who He is, what He has done for us and obey Him, the power of sin gets broken over our lives and we experience freedom.

C- Head belief questions everything and is not willing to act/obey, just like these Jews Jesus was talking to. In fact Jesus tells them that they didn’t actually believe in Him, see verse 46.

2- Faith without works is dead.

James 2:19-26 NKJV

19“You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

POINTS TO LEARN:

Demons believe and they tremble in front of God, they believe God is real because they can see Him, but they are not saved and will never be saved! There is not redemption for them. Christ came into the world to save the people of the world to redeem us (John 3:16). The Biblical faith required for salvation is the faith that causes us into action/obedience, think about what Abraham had to do and did it because he believed God.

POINTS TO DISCUSS

Everyone is different and the Lord has different assignments for everyone, what He asked someone else He may not ask of you, but the truth remains the same. We are all called to confess Christ and share Him to others, how are we to do that, we must step out in faith and do what the Lord tells us to do.

QUESTION:

A- Does having real faith means we don’t ever get scare or be afraid?

ANSWER:
A- Faith in God doesn’t mean that all of a sudden we become brave, and never again fear, but it means we must be courageous and strong like the Lord told Joshua, or like Paul told the Corinthians but they overcame that fear when they refuse to yield to it and stepped out in faith and did what God wanted them to do.

Read and take particular attention on verse 3

1 Corinthians 2:1-6

“And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”

3- Faith in the Person of Jesus.

Romans 10:8-13 NKJV

8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

POINTS TO LEARN:

Biblical faith in Christ will cause you to confess Christ to others. (Verse 9-19) Confess what He has done for you and confess what He can do for others. No one is better or less than others, everyone has to come to Christ an experience His forgiveness and accept the gift of salvation, then everyone must confess Christ to others according to God’s call in their lives. We are all different but that doesn’t mean one is better than others. We must appreciate each others gifts and rejoice in what Christ does through each one of us. There is no room for jealousy or competition.

POINT TO DISCUSS

Head faith versus heart faith.
Even in countries where Christianity is forbidden and Christian are persecuted and being killed, people are coming to Christ and can’t keep silent about their faith. Many died but they refuse to confess and deny Christ.

QUESTIONS

A- Why will people not tell others about Christ?

B- in verse 9 we are told we need to believe in something, what is it? and why we must believe that fact?

ANSWERS

A- There are many reasons why but mainly it all comes to the one factor, they don’t really believe.

B- We must believe in our hearts that God has raised Christ from the dead, because this is the validation of Christ being what He said He was. The Son of God who came to do the will of the Father.

See verses below:

Matthew 28:6 NKJV

“He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

John 11:25-26 NKJV

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?””

Conclusion:

1- Believing in Christ requires action. Just because someone says they believe in God it doesn’t mean they will be saved from hell. It’s important we preach the real Gospel because many will be lost for eternity for not knowing the truth. We are not to judge who goes to heaven or hell but we are told to share the true full Gospel. But one thing we know from the Scripture is that faith requires action that makes us do works.

Doing Works won’t save us (See Ephesians 2:8-9) especially if we do good works out of fear because we don’t want to go to hell, but having true faith in Christ will definitely produce good works.

Good works produced out of Faith, we believe who Christ is, why He died and resurrected and what He can do for us.

Ephesians 2:8-10 NKJV

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

2- People don’t come to Christ mostly because they don’t hear about the real Jesus, they hear about the historical Jesus or the religious Jesus but not the Jesus of the Bible

Jesus is being lowered down to a good man or just a prophet and compared to other so called gurus or prophets from other beliefs but that’s not the real Jesus.

Christ is eternal, and was with the Father before creation. He became a man to save humanity from their original sin and paid the price for our freedom with His death. There is one important fact we need to remember, and that is that Christ resurrected from the dead at the third day and now He is seated at the right hand of the Father. Unlike other ‘holy men’ or ‘gurus’ who have died and were buried and whose bodies decomposed never to rise again, it just proves they were just mere men. But Christ was 100% man and 100% God just like He said He was.

There will be a resurrection of the dead at the final judgement but some will rise to everlasting life because they believed and follow Christ and those who rejected Christ and didn’t come to Him for salvation will be dammed for all eternity. Jesus provided the way to salvation but people need to decide to follow Him, they have the right to hear the truth and they have the right to choose if they want to follow Christ.

Romans 10:14-17 NKJV

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “ LORD, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

3- It is time for us believers to rise in faith and begin confessing and sharing Christ to other. The Lord is with us and He will not fail us.

4- We must become disciples and not believers.

Karina Maile