Believing into Him
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in[to] him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, parentheses added)
Richard exhorted us last Sunday that when we first believed in Jesus we didn’t merely acknowledge his existence but rather we believed into him. We were born again and began to live the life we were always intended to live – the life of Christ.
“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6)
We have an obligation as God’s people to abide in Christ and the promise that as we do so we will walk as he walked and live as he lived and even do greater things than he did (John 14:12). To abide in Christ is to live in a way that does not offend him, walking in obedience to him and by being continually filled with his Spirit. As we abide in him we allow our lives to be embedded with his life and perfumed with his fragrance even as we are transformed into his image.
As God’s people we are called to be as he is in this world (1 John 4:17). We are called to be his presence here on earth, bringing his rule and reign into the very fabric of the society and culture in which we live.
We are called to be his light to those living in darkness, his voice of hope to those who have no hope and his hand of blessing to those in need. Let us live the life we were always intended to live, a life of greater works, as we continue to abide in him and follow him in all that we do.
“It is not enough to believe ‘in’ Christ, with mere mental acceptance of the facts of his life, or truths of his teaching. We must believe ‘into’ Christ. We must be moved by heartfelt faith out of ourselves and into Christ, out of our sin and into his righteousness, out of our weakness and into his power, out of our failure and into his victory, out of our limitations and into his omnipotence. This true scriptural faith of the heart always produces change and transformation.” (Derek Prince, Foundation Series, Sovereign World, 1986, p115)
Reuben Cole
