Biblical Contradiction part 2 - Believe or Believe In?
March 28th 2011 22:00
So,God does require work, it is to believe in the one He sent, but as I said previously,even the demons can do that. So, what in the world is He talking about? The original Greek word used in John is pisteu (Strong's #G4102). It is not just to believe, but to believe in, to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, to place confidence in the thing believed". The preposition translated as 'in' or 'on' is eis and it literally means: into, unto, to, towards, for,or among.
It is active, not passive. It is believing towards Christ. That is faith and that is hard work. Interestingly, that one little word, eis, is not used when James referred to the demons believing there is one God. The demons were not believing in one God, rather just belief of that God, just acknowledging the truth of the matter. He is. That they knew that beyond a doubt and had complete confidence in believing there was only one God and He was it.Just believing it did them no good.
Believing in takes work. Hard work. If you do not understand what it means for faith to be ‘work’, think back to the hard times you have had in life. Life is full of deaths, illnesses, addictions, diseases, suicides, betrayals, etc. Whatever the experiences may be in your life, we all come to the place where our faith meets our fear. Putting your trust into, towards and among Christ and His Body of believers in the worst of times and the worst of situations, is work. Keeping the faith through persecution, pain, problems, and just daily life; takes work. Faith is not easy. It means that no matter what the circumstances may be you choose to stand firm in your belief that God is good, that God loves us, that life may be awful because of sinful humans and a sin filled environment; but none of that is God’s initial will for our lives. We chose sin, but out of His great love for us He promises to take every awful moment of our lives and use it to expand His kingdom. Not because of anything we have done or will do, but IF we will maintain our faith, our 'believing onto', our 'believing towards' Christ. (Romans 8:6-9, 28)
The little bitty words are the key. The if’s, and’s, but’s. Therein lies the confusion or supposed contradiction. Iif your works are coupled with your faith then your works bring glory to God, even though they do nothing for you in His eyes. You may get noticed and/or rewarded by man, but your sole purpose is to 'believe unto' and bring glory to God. Notice, it is not to PLEASE God in the sense that it makes us look any better or justifies us in any way other than being a demonstration of our 'believeing unto'. It is to HONOR God in the sense that it makes HIM look better, our works are still covered in poo, but God sees Christ in us when we are working from our faith in Him. He does not see the poo. It has been cleansed as white as snow. How? Believing in Christ's sacrifice completely removes it and replaces it with the image of Himself. Is there any human way to clean those brownies in a way that you would be willing to eat them? If you are being honest, anything done to 'purify' or 'sanitize' them would not only affect their quality, but it also wouldn't convince you to accept them with that cleaned 'poo' still in there. Only Christ can purify in that fashion and make our poo tainted lives acceptable to God.
It is active, not passive. It is believing towards Christ. That is faith and that is hard work. Interestingly, that one little word, eis, is not used when James referred to the demons believing there is one God. The demons were not believing in one God, rather just belief of that God, just acknowledging the truth of the matter. He is. That they knew that beyond a doubt and had complete confidence in believing there was only one God and He was it.Just believing it did them no good.
Believing in takes work. Hard work. If you do not understand what it means for faith to be ‘work’, think back to the hard times you have had in life. Life is full of deaths, illnesses, addictions, diseases, suicides, betrayals, etc. Whatever the experiences may be in your life, we all come to the place where our faith meets our fear. Putting your trust into, towards and among Christ and His Body of believers in the worst of times and the worst of situations, is work. Keeping the faith through persecution, pain, problems, and just daily life; takes work. Faith is not easy. It means that no matter what the circumstances may be you choose to stand firm in your belief that God is good, that God loves us, that life may be awful because of sinful humans and a sin filled environment; but none of that is God’s initial will for our lives. We chose sin, but out of His great love for us He promises to take every awful moment of our lives and use it to expand His kingdom. Not because of anything we have done or will do, but IF we will maintain our faith, our 'believing onto', our 'believing towards' Christ. (Romans 8:6-9, 28)
The little bitty words are the key. The if’s, and’s, but’s. Therein lies the confusion or supposed contradiction. Iif your works are coupled with your faith then your works bring glory to God, even though they do nothing for you in His eyes. You may get noticed and/or rewarded by man, but your sole purpose is to 'believe unto' and bring glory to God. Notice, it is not to PLEASE God in the sense that it makes us look any better or justifies us in any way other than being a demonstration of our 'believeing unto'. It is to HONOR God in the sense that it makes HIM look better, our works are still covered in poo, but God sees Christ in us when we are working from our faith in Him. He does not see the poo. It has been cleansed as white as snow. How? Believing in Christ's sacrifice completely removes it and replaces it with the image of Himself. Is there any human way to clean those brownies in a way that you would be willing to eat them? If you are being honest, anything done to 'purify' or 'sanitize' them would not only affect their quality, but it also wouldn't convince you to accept them with that cleaned 'poo' still in there. Only Christ can purify in that fashion and make our poo tainted lives acceptable to God.
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