A few years ago I was involved in a Bible study group that challenged our thinking as we dove deep into God’s Word.  It was not about mere opinions of what was being said, but more of taking the Word as Truth that no one can change.  We were challenged to answer a very important question at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the study;

Do you really believe that what God says about Himself and His Son, Jesus, really real?

Stopping in our study to seriously answer this soul-searching question caused us to examine the condition of our hearts.  You can grow up in the church, attend all the church functions, read the Bible daily, know all the rules and traditions and obey them to the best of your ability and yet remain in a state of mind that is only impressed with Jesus as a good teacher.  Impressions, sacrifices of our time for church, focusing on doing good things is not what God is looking for first from us.  He wants us. 

God wants to walk and talk with us in consistent communion with Him.  God wants all our attention.  2 Chronicles 16:9 tells us that God looks over the earth to seek hearts fully committed to Him no matter what is happening around them.  God wants to pour out blessings of His growing character into these believing hearts!  God wants to fill all of who we are, (heart, mind and soul) with all of who He is—into our whole being.  Being is primary.  Doing is secondary.  Both are important just as both arms are important for the balance of our physical bodies.  Being with God prompts doing what He says.

So, do you really believe that what God says is really real?

Jesus challenges the blind men who want to see with this very question with a follow up command—Become what you believe. 

Matthew 9, The Message

Become What You Believe

^27-28 As Jesus left the house, he was followed by two blind men crying out, “Mercy, Son of David! Mercy on us!” When Jesus got home, the blind men went in with him. Jesus said to them, “Do you really believe I can do this?” They said, “Why, yes, Master!”

^29-31 He touched their eyes and said, “Become what you believe.” It happened. They saw. Then Jesus became very stern. “Don’t let a soul know how this happened.” But they were hardly out the door before they started blabbing it to everyone they met.

^32-33 Right after that, as the blind men were leaving, a man who had been struck speechless by an evil spirit was brought to Jesus. As soon as Jesus threw the evil tormenting spirit out, the man talked away just as if he’d been talking all his life. The people were up on their feet applauding: “There’s never been anything like this in Israel!”

³⁴ The Pharisees were left sputtering, “Smoke and mirrors. It’s nothing but smoke and mirrors. He’s probably made a pact with the Devil.”

^35-38 Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. “What a huge harvest!” he said to his disciples. “How few workers! On your knees and pray for harvest hands!”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

What does “become what you believe” look like?  Let’s begin Jesus.  Jesus personified the love God has for us.  Jesus taught Kingdom of God thinking and healed those broken by life on earth.  Jesus’ heart was broken as He looked over all the precious lives created by God who needed God desperately.  God’s love that sent Jesus into the world to save all who would believe, really believe, now prompted Jesus’ challenge to all who follow Him: “On your knees and pray for harvest hands!” 

Do you really believe who God is and what He says is really real?

Become what you believe!

If our answer to Jesus is the same as the blind men, “Why, yes, Master” then we, too must become what we say we believe.  God’s love in us, working through us to become fully formed from the inside out, is the beginning to really believing and becoming.  Jesus asked the blind men, “do you really believe I can do this”?  Hearing their affirmative response Jesus replied, “Become what you believe.”

God wants us love Him back with the same kind of love He has for us—without conditions or bargaining.  God wants a growing, intimate, loving relationship with us that is eternal.  Jesus tells his followers that loving God is the greatest command from God.  Second to that command is to love each other like God loves us!  Paul describes this unique love of God in a very familiar passage:

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proudor rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13, NLT

Do you really believe?  It depends on your “love life” with God.

Become what you believe.  Our actions will automatically reflect the true belief of our hearts.  Under pressure, our level of love will also be evident. 

Lord,

Your challenge is to believe, really believe then become what we say we believe. Thank you for this reminder of your love for us and in us.  Thank you, Jesus for portraying the heart of God on earth while showing us God’s love for us, how to love Him back, along with how to love each other.  I do believe.  Help me to become more and more like you and less like my natural self.  You are first.  I am second to last.  I love you back with all my heart, mind and soul. 

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen