Do You Really Believe What You Say You Believe?

By Rodney Hobson

A Christian's growth is dependent on what they say they know regarding Christ and what they say they believe about Christ and the application of those beliefs in their circumstances. The Bible is filled with examples of men and women who believed in God and Christ, yet struggled to believe what they heard, read, and said they believed. Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah, Jesus disciples, Paul, and others had issues of believing what they heard or what was written in scripture. What does it mean when a person says, "I believe in God?" How does unbelief affect what a Christian believes? Does what a person believes limit their ability to produce the truths of Christ and its results in their lives? This book is written to explore the challenges of believing the Word of God and learning how to produce the results of those beliefs in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781641917957

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Do You Really Believe What You Say You Believe?

Rodney Hobson

Copyright © 2018 by Rodney Hobson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

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This book is dedicated to those believers who dare to believe that anything is possible to those who believe in the truths of Christ Jesus.

Introduction

Have you ever experienced situations in life so mentally and emotionally devastating that they challenge the theology of what you believe in Christ? How many life situations have you experienced where you believe God would intervene and it didn’t occur? How many times have you prayed for God to change a situation? You pray with all of your heart and with everything you know and have been taught regarding prayer, faith, and believing. You invested many hours and energy in praying, speaking the Word and quoting the appropriate scriptural confessions, and nothing happened and you don’t understand why.

Because you didn’t receive what you prayed for, you questioned yourself, Did I pray hard enough? Do I have enough faith? You question the truths of God that you were taught. You question if what’s written in the Bible is really true. Internal conflict wages within your thinking because you were taught never to question God. Quietly and privately, you questioned yourself. Will God’s promises really work? Why doesn’t it work for me? Finally, you spiritually rationalize that it must have been God’s will for the situation to end this way. Have you ever question yourself by thinking, Do I really believe what I say I believe?

How important is it for you to obtain those answers? How serious are you to know what God wants you to do and how to do it? The Bible is filled with stories, statements, and examples. The Bible covers many subjects that discuss the challenges of living life and how to live it effectively. The question is, do you really believe them? Is there evidence to show that you believe them? What good is the Bible if you don’t believe what’s in it? There are reasons why, in spite of what Christians say they believe, they struggle and are overcome by many issues of life. The Bible states in Romans that Christians are more than conquerors in Christ regarding the issues of life. Do you really believe that statement?

Humanity is equipped with the ability to have free will to believe whatever a person chooses to believe. What a person chooses to believe or not to believe will have a major impact on his or her perception on how they choose to live their life. What a Christian believes about Christ will either limit what they can do or open unlimited possibilities in Christ. It will have direct impact on how they perceive Christ and how to live in Him.

This book is revealing because it defines the types of belief needed with faith that is essential to the acceptance, application and manifestation of the Word of God in the Christian life. This book provides clarity, definition and application to believing of spiritual truths. It also discusses different degrees of unbelief that Christians and agnostics and atheists experience in their thinking that directly affect their way of perceiving and living life.

I hope this book will challenge your thinking and motivate you to examine and reassess what you really believe and why and what it takes to believe and how to believe the Word of Truth. Lastly, I hope this book motivates you to think about what it really means to believe and to evaluate if what you believe produces life in your situations because the Word of God is spirit and produces life.

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Do You Really Believe What You Say You Believe?

Chapter six in the Gospel of John begins with a crowd of people looking for Jesus. Jesus had just fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fishes. They looked for him on the other side of the lake. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, Rabbi, when did you get here?

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me not because you saw the miracles because you ate the loaves and had your fill." Do not work for food that spoils, but work for food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you. On Him, God the Father has placed his seal of approval. Then they asked him, "What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this; to Believe on him whom he has sent" (John 6:25–29).

What did Jesus mean when he said the work of God is to believe on him whom he has sent? The work of God is for people to believe that Jesus is who He said He was. It is for people to accept what Jesus said as Truth. The work is taking the truth that is placed in the heart and mind of a believer in Christ and applying it to overcome the consciousness of sin, destroy the works of darkness, and to produce the good works of God. The work is believing in his works and finished works of Christ. It will take work with effort of mind and desire to believe in Christ and understand what he said is the truth.

Jesus did great works to convince people that He was truly sent by God the Father. He helped them believe that he is the Messiah, the Christ, and the Son of God. A main focus in the Gospel of John is on the work of believing. John, in his writing, places emphasis on what Jesus said regarding belief and what to believe. In his writing, Jesus placed emphasis on the importance of believing. It is interesting to note that John only made reference to faith only once in his gospel, while his writing focused on the vital act of believing.

John the Apostle reinforced his emphasis on the importance of believing when he wrote compellingly at the end of his book stating that "These events are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have abundant life in his name" (John 20:31).

Do you, as a believer in Christ, really believe as truth that you have life in His name? Not just eternal life, but spiritual life? Do you believe that you are a son or daughter of the living God, and is there evidence to support that belief?

Many Christians confess that he is Lord over their life. As a Christian, do you believe Christ is Lord over in your life? Is He Lord over each of your thoughts or the content of your thinking? Is He Lord over the renewing of your consciousness or perception of how you perceive living life? Is He Lord over the things you believe? Is He Lord over the words that proceed from your mouth or over the things that you see or hear? Christians also confess that He is Lord over their circumstances. What does that mean?

If He is Lord over their life and circumstances as they confess, why, at critical times, does their conviction of their belief fade from the pressure of adversity presented by their circumstances? Why does fear, doubt, or unbelief dictate or overcome what Christians believe in Christ when the Word clearly states they are more than conquerors over those things?

To become the believer that Christ created his sons and daughters to be and become the church that God the Father called Christians to become, one of the questions that Christians must address is, do we really believe what we say we believe?

What does it mean to believe? How do we learn to believe? What do we believe? What will it take to convince his sons and daughters of God to believe, to be fully persuaded?

A pastor once said, Time after time, I have heard people make excuses for either failing to receive Jesus as Savior or failing to appropriate His power to live the Christian life, and the number one excuse is this: I just can’t believe or I don’t have faith. (Ray C. Stedman, Adventuring through the Bible, p. 698.) Christians have faith and can learn to believe the Word of Truth and be productive in producing for the kingdom of God. Most Christians have said, at one time or another, that I believe in this or I have faith in that. Do we really know and understand what we are saying when we make those statements and the motivation behind saying them?

Faith and Believing

Is faith and believing the same? Do they share the same meaning or are they different? Most people use them interchangeably and believe they have the same definition. I believe that they are different in definition and role. One dictionary definition indicates to believe is saying that you are convinced that what you say is true or fact.

Many people have different definitions and ideas of what believing and belief mean to them. I use this definition—to believe is to accept and agree with what is heard or seen as truth. Faith is defined as the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

The writer of Hebrews appears to distinguish or show distinction in their role as he combined the use of the words faith and belief to describe how coming to God must be achieved. He begins with "but without faith, it is impossible to please him because he that comes to him must believe that he is and a rewarder of them that diligently seeks him" (Hebrews 11:6). Faith is defined as the substance of things hoped for, and believing is to accept and agree with what you hear as truth. Faith needs to be based on something hoped for. Think about this question—do you believe faith gives substance to things hoped for?

Faith and believing operate together to bring manifestation to the things hoped for, prayed for, and spoken of.

The relationship between faith and believing is similar to the relationship between wet and water. They go together. The wet cannot be without the water. They work together, and have order. They cannot work and be effective separately. They are connected together and will not fulfill its function without each other. Similarly, you cannot utilize faith without believing and be productive on a consistent basis. The writer of Hebrews specifically connected these two words (faith and believe) together in communicating their relationship with purpose and effectiveness.

Examine the part of scripture that says, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God because he that comes to him must believe that he is." The writer indicates that Christians are to use faith to please God and the act of believing to accept that God exists and that they are rewarded for using them in seeking Him.

In other words, by using faith and their belief, Christians are rewarded when they produce or manifest His Word in their lives. The application of their faith and belief are the vehicles. Faith is the substance that must have the objective of hope. Believing is the catalyst; the accepted truth of God’s Word that produces the desire/motivation to do/produce the action that Christians direct their faith.

Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. To live by every Word of God is learning to connect His Word to each other based on the need or situation. We apply His Word by believing his Word and using faith to manifest or bring into this existence our desire based on his Word.

In Matthew 9:27–29, Jesus had left a certain land, and two blind men followed him saying, "Son of David, have mercy on us." When Jesus was in the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this? They said, Yes, Lord. Jesus touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it unto you. Why did Jesus specifically ask the blind men, Do you believe I am able to do this?" What was he asking regarding their acceptance to believe?

Notice what took place when faith and belief were applied to their circumstance. First, what was their circumstance? Their circumstance was that they were blind. The two blind men that followed Jesus must have heard about Jesus. They might have heard whom He declared himself to be and that He was able to heal the blind and did heal the blind. The blind men hoped to believe as truth what they heard and that He could heal them.

They focused their faith (substance of things hoped for) in the thing hoped for and believed (accepted and agreed) what he said he could do. In Mark 11:22, Jesus began that verse by saying, "Have faith in God or have the faith of God." I would also add, to have faith in the things of God and in this case, the thing asked for was healing for their eyes.

Second, what did they believe? One factor of believing is based on what you choose to believe. They believed Jesus could heal them. Jesus wanted to know what they believed. Jesus wanted them to say what they believed. That is why Jesus asked them this question, Believe that I am able to do this? Their response was that they believed that Jesus was able to restore their sight. They accepted that fact as truth and spoke what they believed. Third, what did they receive? They received what they said they believed.

Jesus then stated to them, According to your faith, be it unto you? Their faith (the thing hoped for) incorporated in their faith what they believed (Jesus could heal them), the result was the Word of truth produced for the kingdom of God and them.

Here is another question. Can faith give substance to something you don’t believe?

Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, was faced with a situation that challenged what he said he believed. In John chapter twenty-one, Jesus had appeared to the other disciples after his death and resurrection. Thomas wasn’t there. The other disciples told Thomas that they had seen the Lord. Thomas did not believe them. He believed that Jesus was dead. He was convinced of that fact and why not? Thomas believed, like many people, that death is the natural order of life. Think about this.

Thomas had seen Jesus raise people from the dead. Maybe Thomas wondered, Could someone raise Jesus from the dead? Only two things could change his belief. Thomas said, "Except I see in his hands the nail print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nail in his hand. That wasn’t enough for him. He also said, And put my hand into his side, I will not believe." Thomas expressed exactly what he needed, and what he needed was to see those things in order to believe that Jesus was alive. Some people say and believe that seeing is believing.

Jesus appeared to the disciples and spoke directly to Thomas and said, "Put your finger here, see my hand. Put your hand here into my side and don’t be faithless, but believing. Jesus continued by saying, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." Some people have to see it in order to believe it.

The ability to believe and bring into existence what you believe is a powerful action that can be applied by any person. What a person believes can be very creative or sometimes destructive. A person can believe in something positive, good, negative, or evil. A person can choose to believe anything they can imagine. They can even believe in things that are not real.

People can believe a truth or a lie. Have you ever listened to what someone told you about someone, and you accepted that as truth? You acted on it and shared that information with other people. But later, you found out that it wasn’t true or accurate. What happened to your belief in what you heard and what changed it? There are two kinds of truth. There is truth based on fact. For example, Detroit is located in Michigan. That is a statement of fact, and people accept that as being true. The other kind of truth is the truths of God, and that is based in faith, belief, and results.

Paul believed what he was doing was right based on what he was taught as truth. That belief became his truth, and he acted on it by persecuting Christians. That was his truth