Daily Devotional

We read in Hebrews 11:1 that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The dictionary definition of faith is a complete trust or confidence in something or someone. We are called to place our faith, our trust in the person of Jesus Christ, who is presented in the Bible as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, who came to earth in human form and therefore remaining fully God and at the same time fully man, who lived a perfect life and died as a sinless sacrifice for our sin and raising from the dead conquering death that we may be saved. That is the abridged version of the Gospel, or the Good News, and while there were plenty of people around who witnessed it, we are now two thousand years removed from it and there is no one living today who we can ask about the validity of these events.

We are called to take this on faith. Not blind faith mind you, we have the written record of what happened by a number of different authors, we have secular history that attests to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who lived when the Bible claims He did. We have witnesses who died horrible and painful deaths for refusing to deny the truth that they claimed about Jesus Christ. And ultimately we have an empty tomb. We have a lot of evidence that Jesus not only lived but was who He said He was, not to mention the some three hundred prophecies that Jesus fulfilled regarding His birth, His life, and even in His death. I submit there is a lot you can do to try and manipulate how you live your life to fulfill prophecy, but good luck staging anything regarding your birth, as well as your execution in someone else's hands.

When I was younger, I used to think back on the Bible stories and wonder, how did Israel keep turning away from God, when they were living in the times where they saw the power of God over and over again in supernatural ways. Imagine being the Israelites after all the plagues, the pillar of fire and smoke to lead them, and then the parting of the Red Sea and seeing it swallow Pharaoh's army and then grumbling in the desert and building an idol and turning away from God. And then I think about people that say “well if God shows Himself to me, then I’ll believe” and I think, no you won’t. You have all the evidence of God you need, and if God showed up today you probably would still come up with an excuse to not believe.

God calls us to believe in Him, He has given us the evidence of His intelligent creation, His Word, the Bible that points to Jesus’ redeeming work over and over in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the work of Jesus in the New Testament, the many witnesses of Jesus’ words, miracles, and resurrection, and the many lives of the martyrs who died rather than deny the deity and work of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is knocking on the door of your heart today, and all He asks is that you have faith, accept the work He did for you on that cross, believe in Him and trust in Him for your salvation, and you will be saved!

John chapter 20 ends with “but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

AMEN!

New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.