Faith in Jesus

Jesus is God's Son, who became a man and came to save us. He's someone you can know and trust.

In Colossians, Paul calls Jesus the image of the invisible God. All things were created through Him and for Him, and all things hold together in Him.

When I was a kid, I had a banana-seat bike with a little light that ran off the pedals. If I cranked hard, the light came on. If I quit cranking, it went out. That light only existed as long as I kept pedaling. That's what Paul means when he says all things hold together in Jesus. We're the light, and He provides the power that keeps us existing.

Jesus used that power to heal people, welcome sinners, and give Himself for us. When we wonder what God is like, Jesus gives us an answer we can actually look at.

That's who we're talking about when we say to believe in Jesus. Christianity begins with Him and what He's done. You can learn about Him without first deciding what you think of every preacher, church, or religious argument you've ever heard.

Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. Through Him, we're forgiven, brought near to God, and given life that lasts beyond death.

Our sins are real. We've done harm, and we can't go back and undo it all. Jesus came knowing that, and the cross shows how far He was willing to go.

Paul says God made us alive with Christ and forgave our sins. He calls what we owed a record of debt, and he says God canceled it by nailing it to the cross. Forgiveness is something Jesus can give you because of what He's already done.

And Jesus is alive. Easter ain't a used to be. It's a right now. He told Martha that the person who believes in Him will live even though he dies. He can make that promise because He has power over death.

If you believe in the risen Jesus and call on Him, you will be saved. That's the message Paul says he preached.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Paul was telling a church he hoped would help send him on to Spain exactly what he preached, and he didn't leave anything out.

Confessing Jesus means saying what you believe about Him. Paul describes the same faith in the heart and on the lips. You're believing in Jesus and saying so.

Paul says the same Lord is generous toward all who call on Him. He makes no distinction between Jew and Greek. Your background doesn't put you outside His offer. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

God gives us a life we couldn't give ourselves. We receive it through faith in Jesus because God is gracious.

Ephesians describes us as dead in our sins. Then Paul says God made us alive with Christ because of His great love for us, and he's so excited about it that he breaks into his own sentence to say it: "by grace you have been saved!" It's like a "Wow!" dropped into the middle of a sentence.

Being saved by grace means your rescue begins with His goodness, not with a stretch of good behavior that makes up for everything else. Jesus came to save sinners. That's good news for people who've actually sinned.

Paul says we're saved by grace through faith, and that it's God's gift, not the result of works. You stand on Jesus Christ alone, not Jesus Christ plus anything else.

You believe that Jesus is the Christ, God's Son, who died for your sins and rose again. You trust Him to save you.

There's something definite to believe. John says God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Faith takes God's testimony about Jesus seriously.

Imagine God the Father taking the witness stand. He swears to tell the truth, and He says, "That's my Son. He's the Christ." John says that the person who doesn't believe God's testimony about His Son has made God out to be a liar.

That means you can quit hunting for a special religious feeling that proves you believed hard enough. Your confidence has a reason: Jesus is who He says He is, and He can do what He says He can do.

Learning to live as a Christian follows from that. There's plenty to learn, and God's got good things for you to do. But believing in Jesus doesn't mean promising you'll never mess up again. You're trusting Him to save a person who needs saving.

You can trust Jesus while you've still got questions to work through. Ask Him to help you with those, too.

In Mark 9, a father brings his suffering son to Jesus. He wants help, but he's unsure what Jesus can do. Finally he says, "I believe; help my unbelief!" Jesus helps him. The man's need was real, and he was honest about where he was.

A lot of us recognize ourselves in that father. We believe, and then we get rattled. Something happens that we don't understand, or somebody raises a question we can't answer. You can tell Jesus the truth about that instead of putting on a religious performance.

Read what Jesus said and did. Talk to somebody who'll take you seriously. Keep learning. You don't have to settle every question about the Bible before you can believe that Jesus is God's Son and trust Him to save you.

You belong to God, and you get to learn how to live as His child. His grace gives you a life to grow into.

Jesus doesn't save you into being a robot. He saves you into a direction. Paul had been a zealous Pharisee who went after the church, and after Jesus got hold of him, he went after Christ with the same fire.

Jesus is still risen, and the life He gives includes being baptized, learning what He taught, praying, and sharing life with other believers. It gets into how you treat your family, how you do your work, and whether you're willing to help somebody. These are good things to learn because you belong to Him.

You won't get it all right at once. Paul himself said he hadn't arrived. He said he was going after it because Jesus had already caught him. You can grow for that same reason. You have a Father who wants you, a Savior who's brought you near, and help for the life ahead of you.