Not all beliefs are equal.
When my youngest sister was about four or five, she was obsessed with fairies. She believed in them and wanted to become a fairy so badly that she prayed that God would turn her into one. Of course, she had never actually seen a fairy, but she believed in them strongly. Unfortunately for her, no matter how hard she believed in fairies or how much she prayed, she never became a fairy. As a child, I would suggest that my sister had an immature type of faith. Like many of us do at that age.
I mention this to highlight that not all kinds of beliefs are equal.
There is the type of faith that is uninformed and has no basis in reality. Then there is the type of belief that may have some evidence to support it, but the person holding the belief is not moved to do anything about it. Then there is the type of belief that is based on sound reasoning and evidence and is held so firmly that it impacts a person’s behaviour and life.
When it comes to God and religion, the nature of faith is similar. There can be different types of beliefs and other levels. There can be beliefs in gods and teachings that are false. There can also be an intellectual acknowledgement that something is true but without any desire to act on that belief (James 2:19). Some people believe in Jesus but only dabble in obedience. These people lack real commitment. Then there is the robust, active, and life-changing type of belief. I want to suggest that it is this last type of belief that God wants us to have in Jesus. It is the type of belief that many of the godly people in the Bible came to possess, and it is the type of belief that we also see in the apostles. It is the type of belief that will maximise your spiritual potential.
Since the apostles set the standard of the type of belief all Christians need to possess, I want to take the time in this article to analyse their type belief to determine how it is we can develop the same type of belief that they held.
So how can we develop a belief in Jesus similar to that of the apostles?
- We need to regularly behold Christ and spend time with Him.
In John 1:35-51, we read the account where the apostles first meet Jesus. After being encouraged to look at Jesus and see the “Lamb of God”, two of John’s disciples, one of them being Andrew, follow Jesus and show an interest in spending time with Him. So, Jesus welcomes them to come and see where He was staying. And as they spend time with Jesus observing and experiencing Him, they become convinced that He is the Messiah. Andrew then convinces Peter to come with him to see Jesus. Later on, Philip encourages Nathaniel to “Come and see”. Upon encountering Jesus and witnessing his insight, Nathaniel declares to Jesus, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel”. Of course, at this stage, their belief in Jesus lacked maturity, but over time as they spent more time with Jesus, these disciples would be transformed and come to be people who would significantly impact this world forever.
Of course, we today cannot spend time with Jesus in person yet. But we can prioritise Him in our life and spend time thinking about Him, studying what the scriptures say about Him, reflecting upon Him in the Lord’s Supper and being influenced by His people as we gather with them a week to week.
As we regularly fixate on Jesus. And, as we spend time being influenced by Him, we become transformed to be like Him.
2 Corinthians 3:12-18 says that as Moses began to glow with the glory of God by spending time with Him, we begin to reflect the Lord’s glory and are changed into His likeness as we continually behold Him and spend time with Him.
Spending time with Jesus and regularly beholding Him helps us develop the right kind of belief that maximises our spiritual potential. - We need to read the scriptures through the lens of Christ.
This is a similar point to the first one, but it is so crucial to coming to a solid faith in Christ it warrants attention.
I am always amazed at passages like John 1:10-11, which says, “Jesus came to that which was his own (the Jews), but his own did not receive him”. By the time Jesus came on the scene, the Jews were dedicated to God and the scriptures. They had learnt their lesson from their exile and hadn’t gone back to the worship of the pagan gods their ancestors had gone after. They had high regard for the scriptures and read them every Sabbath and at major events. Many of them had memorised large portions of the Old Testament. Knowing this, how is it that they didn’t recognise God when He showed up in the flesh? Part of it is that many of them had not cultivated that right kind of heart. However, the other aspect is that they missed the main point of scripture because they read the scriptures through the lens of their traditions and a merit-based system of righteousness. That made them so fixated on earning eternal life and upholding traditions that they had built that many of them missed the entire point of the Bible. As Jesus said in John 5:39-40, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life”. In encouraging the young evangelist Timothy, Paul writes, “from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”. In Galatians 3:24, Paul says, “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith”.
Unfortunately, I fear that sometimes many of us who are Christians today experience those same issues that these Jews did. We miss the main point of scripture because we read it through the lens of Law and tradition rather than through the lens of Christ. And even though we may believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, we still end up having more faith in our own abilities and works rather than that of Jesus Christ, particularly His work on the cross.
Suppose we are going to develop the same kind of faith that the apostles and disciples had. In that case, we have to learn to read the scriptures through the lens of Jesus as they learnt to do, and as He himself exemplified on the road to Emmaus with His disciples after his resurrection. Luke 24:27 records that Jesus, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself”.
By reading scripture through the lens of Jesus, we will develop the type of belief that maximises our spiritual potential. - We need to come to solid understanding of who Jesus is and continue to follow Him when things are difficult.
God has never expected us to accept Jesus blindly. No, He has provided ample evidence for us to weigh up and reach a reasonable conclusion about who Jesus is. As John writes, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).
In John 6:60-66, we read that it was a failure of many of His disciples to grasp who Jesus was that led them to fall away. However, we read from verses 67-69 of the same chapter that it was the conviction in the identity of Jesus and what He was offering that motivated the apostles to continue to persist in following Jesus despite others falling away. John records, ‘“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God”’.
So convicted about the identity of Jesus, the apostles came to possess incredible courage and endurance in the face of significant opposition and continued to speak about what they had “seen and heard” (Acts 4:21-22).
Until we come to a solid understanding of who Jesus is, we will struggle to develop the right kind of belief that maximises our spiritual potential. - We need to hold to the teachings of Jesus and put them into practice.
This point is probably fairly obvious. Nevertheless, it is an important one to make. Nothing moves our belief more to a deeper level than a willingness to act and live out the teachings of Jesus. In John chapter 8, some people heard the teachings of Jesus and came to have faith in Him initially (John 8:30). However, as you read further along in this chapter, you find out that their belief was only superficial. They believed in Jesus to a degree; however, when Jesus challenged them to be genuine disciples by holding to His teachings, they resisted. Later in the chapter, Jesus encourages them again by saying, “if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death”. Then, in John 7:17, Jesus says, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own”.
Rather than seeing obedience to Jesus as simply a means of obtaining God’s favour, we should see obedience as a means to deepen our faith and make it more complete. As we take in the words of Jesus and seek to live them out, our faith moves from simply an intellectual understanding of God and into a space where we abide in Him and He in us (John 15:5-17).
The apostles came to have such strong belief in Jesus because they held on to the teachings of Jesus and put them into practice. If we want to maximise our spiritual potential then developing a belief by holding the teachings of Jesus and putting them into practice is a must. - We need to value our relationship with Jesus more than our own life.
Admittedly, this last point is the hardest. However, the more we walk with Jesus and love Him, the more He completely takes over our life. In John 12:23-26, Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me”.
Admittedly, I am not sure exactly who Jesus refers to when He speaks about the grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying. It could be equally applied to himself and his disciples. The hour for Him to be glorified probably signals His impending death. By him dying, many people would be brought to God and made like Him. That said, He may also may have been applying it to His disciples. They would only really benefit from Jesus’ death if they were prepared to let go of their own life to embrace Him and His way of life. It’s pretty clear that this is precisely what the apostles did eventually. Because they had seen Jesus and had come to believe Him fully, they put aside their livelihoods and left their hometowns to follow Jesus wherever He would go. Later, they were persecuted, imprisoned and even killed for the sake of Christ and His cause. These apostles developed such belief in Jesus they came to value Jesus more than their own lives.
As difficult as it might be, Jesus wants us also to value Him over our own lives. To this, we need to learn from the apostles and model our belief on theirs. When we do this we develop the type of belief that maximises our spiritual potential.
Conclusion:
To become a Christian, you have to have enough of a belief in Jesus to submit to baptism. However, at that point our belief is still often shallow and immature. Yet Jesus by no means intends for anyone to stay in such a state. Instead, Jesus wants us, just like the apostles, to develop a robust, active faith that wholly leans on Him in every aspect of our lives. Sadly, many who profess a belief in Jesus never develop this kind of belief. Yet there are those who, by spending time with Jesus, learning to read the scriptures through the lens of Jesus, coming to a solid conclusion about who Jesus is, holding to the teaching of Jesus and putting them into practice and coming to value Jesus more their own life, mature and go on to make a significant difference for Jesus and His kingdom.
Our belief in Christ is never meant to stay at one level. Instead, it is mean to grow into the right like of belief. The kind of belief that maximises our full spiritual potential.
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Romans 1:17).
