BELIEVING AND TRUSTING

Believing in Jesus is not a difficult concept. We believe in things that we do not understand every day. The earth that you live on, its place in the galaxy—these are things that you do not understand. But you believe in them. You believe that you are living on planet earth.

God does not call us to understand him. The call of God is to believe. To entrust ourselves to him. The Bible tells us repeatedly that we are not to try to understand God. We are not to focus on our own understanding. We are to focus on him.

But as humans we are constantly trying to figure things out. That is a very big mistake. And it will hurt you spiritually. It will hurt your relationship with God. It will cause you to be tripped up constantly. Because you will always be distracted by things other than Jesus.

“Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and don’t depend on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). When you try to “figure things out” instead of focusing on God, you are depending on your own intelligence. On your own understanding. That is a distraction. That stands in the way of loving and focusing on Jesus. Stop doing that. It is not healthy for you.

We are to simply believe. To trust. To love. “Those who trust in themselves are foolish” (Proverbs 28:26), and that includes trusting in your own abilities to comprehend the realities of God. If you could understand him, you would not have to trust him. So choose to trust him. And forget about understanding him. Love him and forget about trying to use your finite mind to fathom an infinite God of infinite love.

Distraction. That is what the devil is the most interested in. He wants to distract you. He wants you to think about anything except Jesus.

Even things in the Bible—that’s fine with him as long as you’re not thinking about Jesus. You can be thinking about any Bible doctrine you want to. As long as you’re not thinking about putting your faith in Jesus. You could even be thinking about doctrines about Jesus. The virgin birth. The Trinity. The Incarnation. Doctrines about Jesus—focus on those all you want. The devil won’t mind.

The religious leaders of Jesus’s day who rejected him knew what the Bible said about him. They just refused to acknowledge that he was the one the prophets had been talking about.

They knew that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. They knew that he was to be a descendent of David. There were many, many things they knew. Things that would have helped them easily see that he was the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

If they had just been honest about his miracles—which he could have only done if God was with him—they would have been able to see, with just a little honest investigation, that he fulfilled all of the prophecies of the Old Testament. But they did not want to see it.

They knew the doctrines, but they did not know Christ. And the devil used these Bible experts to turn the world against Jesus so much that he was crucified.

The answer does not lie in Bible doctrines. The answer lies in saying yes to Jesus. What the Bible is meant to do is teach you things about him. That is the only purpose for which it was given, and it should never be read without Jesus in mind. If you read the Bible for any reason other than to know, love and follow Jesus, you might as well not read it.

Most people read the Bible in spiritual blindness. Paul dealt with that in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. When the religious leaders read the Old Covenant, their minds and hearts were blinded. But all they had to do was to turn to Jesus and the blindness would be taken away. They would have seen that he was what the Bible is about. All about. Every word of it.

People today read the Bible the exact same way they did. Their hearts are blinded, even as they read the New Testament, because they are not reading it for the right reason. They study and they study, but they do not see Jesus. Because they will not see Jesus.

They search the Scriptures, but they don’t come to Jesus. And that is the only reason that the Scriptures were given. To help us know Jesus. To lead us to Jesus.

So read the Bible all you want to and the devil won’t try to stop you. He knows the Bible better than you ever will. He quoted from it in his confrontation with Jesus in the wilderness. So if the devil can know the Bible, then people who follow the devil can know it well. And misuse it to hurt the lives of others.

The one thing that the devil does not want is for you to love Jesus. Love Jesus as a person. To think of him as a real person who is present in your life. Who will never let you down. Who died to save you. The devil does not care how much you learn about Jesus as long as you don’t love Jesus.

Everything about life is certainly about Jesus. He knows everything about us and he has chosen to love us anyway. And what we are to do in response is to love him back.

Dewayne Dunaway