Tuesday: Believe in Jesus
True repentance goes hand in hand with faith in Jesus as our only Savior. Jesus frequently talked about the need to believe in Him in order to receive His blessings. If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23, NKJV). Faith is essential if we are to be saved. Satan knows that, which is why He makes every effort to keep us from believing (Luke 8:12).
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According to Jesus, what does it mean to believe ? It is more than a vague feeling that something will just happen. It is more than a mental exercise. Saving faith is not devoid of content. On the contrary, faith has a definite object: Jesus Christ. Faith is believing not only in something but, especially, in Someone. Faith is trusting in Jesus and His death for us. Believing in Jesus means knowing Him, understanding who He is (John 6:69), and receiving Him personally (John 1:12).
God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus, so that all who truly believe in Him will have eternal life. His death does not mean that everyone will be saved, however. We have to be covered by His righteousness. By believing in Him, we have righteousness, we have assurance, and we have the great promise that He will raise us up at the last day (John 6:40).
To a woman who had lived a sinful life, Jesus assured her: Your sins are forgiven. . . . Your faith has saved you (Luke 7:48,50, NKJV). What does that mean? Does our faith save us?
According to the Gospels, when Jesus healed some people, He said to them: Your faith has made you well (Matt. 9:22, Mark 10:52, Luke 17:19, NKJV). By saying these words, He was not assigning any healing power to their faith. Their faith was just a complete trust in Jesus’ power to heal them. The power of faith does not come from the person who believes but from the God in whom that person believes.
Why must we be very careful in how we understand the role of faith in regard to prayer, especially about healing? Why is it wrong to conclude from the above verses that if healing doesn’t come as we pray, it’s because we don’t have enough faith?
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A prayer of faith can only be uttered under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that quickens (John 6:63) the heart to pray and believe in God.When we say this prayer of faith, it is indeed having the uttermost trust in the FATHER to answer our prayers according to His will and power to do of His good pleasure for us (Phil 2:13). For He knows what is best for us and His thoughts are higher and His ways better than ours to give us a desired end (Isa 55:8-9). It is faith that makes us believe that God has answered our prayers in a way different from what we want for our own good even when we get not what we want. So Christ tells us that when we pray , say " Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven".(Mat 6:10). God bless you
By believing we have
(a) righteousness-imputed to our record , taking away past sins -the past .
(b) assurance - that God gives to help us live like Him- dealing with our temptation -the present .
(c) hope -the promise that he will raise us up @ the last day - glorification -the future.
I'm struggling to understand the point of this lesson and more specifically what Jesus meant when He said "your faith has saved you"
The Topic for the week: How to be saved. Tuesday's lesson: Believe in Jesus. Belief in Jesus takes faith.
Your question: "Why is it wrong to conclude from the above verses that if healing doesn’t come as we pray, it’s because we don’t have enough faith?"
My question: "what should we then conclude?"
We should conclude that God has a bigger, better plan. What if your suffering,patience, and faith adds up to someone believing? Then would it have been for nought? Remembering that God always answers, should encourage us to have faith that all things are working according to God's plan.
When I was 35 and had 3 children 9 and under my husband was diagnosed with cancer . The church and I prayed but he died within 3 weeks. I know that God is letting him sleep. I know that my husband had finally given his heart to Jesus. My husband is safe and waiting to be called to heaven. How can I be angry with God for giving the person I loved eternal life? Believe me the last 20 yrs have not been a cake walk.
keep faith to Him.
I believe it's because, as it's been said, your faith shouldn't be placed on your hope for the miracle to happen, as the question states, but exclusively upon the person of Jesus.
1John 5.14
faith and God's will must go hand in hand, it doesnt have to be parallel.
I think the role of belief is not stressed enough. Everyone talks about "accepting Jesus as personal Saviour and Lord", when there is no mention in the Bible of that at all. Jesus and the apostles said we should believe.
Shorey, there are a lot of phrases that are not in the Bible that are still Biblical. People give labels to Biblical ideas.
By faith they accept Jesus as their personal Saviour, and become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. -Ellen White, Medical Ministry, Page 145
Belief is very important, yet it can even be over stressed to the point that some people get the idea their ability to believe is what saves them. When this happens it just becomes mental Olympics, and salvation by the works of the brain. We are not saved by the works of the flesh or the works of the brain but by the blood of Jesus. His grace leads us to repentance, not our repentance leading us to God's grace.
Hensen the point of the lesson is that if we believe ( which is by faith our faith) we will be healed and receive blessings. When you believe you will be able to receive God's blessings.When you believe in God you get to know him, understand and receive Him. To be saved basically you HAVE to have FAITH!Faith is trusting in Jesus and His death for us. Believing in Jesus means knowing Him, understanding who He is, and receiving Him personally.Believing in Jesus means knowing Him, understanding who He is (John 6:69), and receiving Him personally (John 1:12).
This week's lesson is entitled, How to be saved. As a result, the an important concept in being saved is to believe in Jesus hence today's topic. However, as the lesson puts out just having knowledge (belief) is not sufficient because the devils believe and tremble. Satan has first hand knowledge of the existence of Jesus. As the lesson points out, salvation requires believing in Jesus, knowing him, understanding who he is and receiving him as your personal savior. However, that is just the beginning. After accepting him as your personal savior, then accepting him as Lord over our lives and subjecting to his will is the next step. That comes via trusting him. As Job said, though you slay me yet will I trust him. So that when we pray and are not healed,we can trust that all things will work out for the good for those that love the Lord and called to his purpose. It is not a lack of faith that results in us not being healed, sometimes others will be blessed because of our journey through the sickness and sometimes, it is our pruning process. The question is not faith but is it in God's will. Since God's will is for all to be save, we should asked who are we witnessing to as we go through this illness? Are we blasting God for not doing as we asked or are we allowing God's glory to shine through our experience?
When we pray with faith and belief we are not twisting God's arm to answer the way we want; we're also trusting Him to answer best for us.
By faith we have to accept His answer. Some things will only be explained in heaven.
Justin, there is a companion book to this quarter Sabbath School Lessons written by E.G.White. I think that it would be helpful to you in your study.
The words “faith” and “belief” have always given Seventh-day Adventists a lot of trouble, I think primarily because we are very much aware of presumption when it comes to faith along with the fact that we have always been very works oriented at times. We look at texts such as, “Not everyone who says to Me,`Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Mat 7:21 NKJV) and, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-- and tremble!” (James 2:19 NKJV). And then we say, “You see it is not just only by belief that we are saved.”
I remember an evangelist many years ago recounting a story about a man that was about to walk across Niagara Falls on a high wire pushing a wheelbarrow. Of course that created a sensation and drew a large crowd of people. Just before doing so he turned to the crowd and asked, “who believes that I can do this?” Everyone’s hand went up. Then he asked, “who then will get into the wheelbarrow?” and everyone’s hand went back down – so much for real faith and belief.
While works are not a part of faith certainly faith will always lead a person to do something. For many years I have used the illustration of a person entering a dark room and instinctively reaching for the light switch. Why does he do that? Because he honestly believes that if he flips the switch a light in the room will come on and he will be able to see. So in a very real sense James was right when he said, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?” (James 2:21-22 NKJV). However, I think he should have stopped there and not pen the verse that says, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only” (Jam 2:24 NKJV) which has caused more trouble than it is worth – which in my view is nothing. To me Paul more than adequately proved that works are not what justifies us but to me they are the end result of our faith. It is what faith drives us to do.
I have to emphasize Tyler's point. Belief is not just mental assent. It means living and practising what you believe. With belief comes action. We often talk about the power of the Holy Spirit and so on, but it is up to us to seize that power and put it into practice.
I can agree 100% with what Maurice said but like all things there is a middle road and for us that is to understand why we do the good works. First of all we need to understand that Jesus expects us to be righteous in our dealing with other people because that is how He is. It has nothing to do with how we are saved which is only by grace that we get through faith but it does have something to say about who is safe to save.
There aren’t going to be anyone in Heaven that disregards the domain and rights of other people. No one there is going to neglect the needs of his neighbor and live solely for Himself. Neither is there going to be anyone there that is an irritating nuisance, gets violently angry at the slightest provocation or tends to set his mind to covetousness. So the works are very important but they are not done to win favor with God as a means of getting into Heaven. That is strictly salvation by works and means nothing because we are all naturally sinful. Without Christ there is no way we can be good enough to be safe to save so if that is our orientation then we will fail and be lost.
The devil loves ditches and there are two of them on either side of the road. One of them says that works are unimportant because we are saved by grace while the other one says that grace isn’t as important as works that we have to be perfect otherwise we cannot be saved. What Satan doesn’t want is for us to see is the middle of the road where we should be, where we accept the grace of God as the way we get to Heaven without neglecting to be good citizens of that place. We need both in proper balance – we need to be in the center, not on either side where there is fanaticism to a one sided life.
I agree with you Tyler we must maintain a balance to far to the left or the right is not good. We should not try to be all things to all people for only the Lord knows our heart. What can take away my sins ? what can make me whole again ? The song goes nothing but the Blood of Jesus. God is Love John 3:16