Do you believe in Jesus?
/I know; it’s a strange question.
I imagine many people cringe when they hear it, including people who consider themselves Christians. Are you dealing with a ‘Jesus nut’ or one of those right-wing extremists? Contrast that with the multitude of questions you get asked daily and ask yourself why this one makes you feel uncomfortable.
You see, they have conditioned us to believe that we should hide our religion. I’ve heard all the excuses: ‘You need to be tolerant,’ ‘It will make people uncomfortable,’ and the infamous, ‘Separation of church and state.’ I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that at many junctures of my life, especially with my time in the NYPD, I have fallen into one of these scenarios. I’m guessing most of us have, but should we hide our faith?
Matthew 5:15-16 says, “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
As Christians, we are not called to be timid, but to preach the Gospel, yet we live in a secular world and many put God behind their ambitions. We don’t want to upset friends or family, we don’t want to get in trouble at work, we don’t want to inhibit our personal ambitions, or we don’t want to offend any influential people.
As an author, I get it. Some of you may know that there was a time I was vocal about my political views. I toned that down when I began writing, because I didn’t want to offend any readers. It’s advice that I strongly recommend, yet too few seem to take it.
But, and this is a big but, there is an enormous difference between politics and religion.
Politics is temporal, religion is eternal.
I’m sure many reading this are wondering, ‘Where the heck is he going with this?’
Recent global events have caused me to take a pause and really consider the times we are living in. Some reading this post might know that I wrote a book titled: Where was God? An NYPD first responder’s search for answers following the terror attack of September 11th 2001. It’s available on Amazon and you can click the link if you’re interested in picking it up. I just added two new chapters and 100% of the royalties goes to charity. The reason I mention it is that the book had originally started off as my 9/11 journey, but quickly turned into an investigation of whether there was even a God to blame. My conclusion was not only that God is real, but that He is very much in control. I mean, He is the great I Am, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
I noticed that with everything going on in the world some people, myself included, were beginning to question whether we are living in the prophesied end times. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, I spent too many years doing investigations and focusing on facts, and I try to always take a sober approach to every issue. After making the case for Christ, it forced me to take a substantive look at what we are told in the Bible.
If you examine the Old Testament, you see that it prophecies about the coming Messiah. Now we must remember something here. If Jesus was real, and I established in my book He was, then the circumstances such as His birthplace, His ancestry, and the method of His death, were beyond His control if He was simply a mortal man and not the promised Messiah.
For a moment, consider the following passages: (Old Testament & Corresponding New Testament verses)
Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2 / Matthew 2:1 Luke 2:4-6)
Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14 / Matthew 1:22-23 Luke 1:26-31)
Messiah would come from the line of Abraham (Genesis 12:3 Genesis 22:18 / Matthew 1:1 Romans 9:5)
Messiah would be a descendant of Isaac (Genesis 17:19 Genesis 21:12 / Luke 3:34)
Messiah would be a descendant of Jacob (Numbers 24:17 / Matthew 1:2)
Messiah would spend a season in Egypt (Hosea 11:1 / Matthew 2:14-15)
A massacre of children would happen at Messiah's birthplace (Jeremiah 31:15 / Matthew 2:16-18)
A messenger would prepare the way for Messiah (Isaiah 40:3-5 / Luke 3:3-6)
Messiah would be rejected by His own people (Psalm 69:8 Isaiah 53:3 / John 1:11 John 7:5)
Messiah would bring light to Galilee (Isaiah 9:1-2 / Matthew 4:13-16)
Messiah would be a sacrifice for sin (Isaiah 53:5-6 / Romans 5:6-8)
Messiah would be crucified with criminals (Isaiah 53:8-9 / Matthew 27:38 Mark 15:27-28)
Messiah would resurrect from the dead (Psalm 16:10 Psalm 49:15 / Matthew 28:2-7 Acts 2:22-32)
Messiah would ascend to heaven (Psalm 24:7-10 / Mark 16:19 Luke 24:51)
Back in the 1952, Peter Stoner, who was a former chairman of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College, and later Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, along with Robert C. Newman, who was a physicist who studied at Cornell with Carl Sagan, published a book titled, Science Speaks. In their book, the authors discussed the statistical improbability of one man, whether accidentally or deliberately, fulfilling just eight of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled. Remember, I gave you fourteen, six more than they considered. Their conclusion was that the chance of this happening was 1 in 1017th power.
Now, if you are like me, you really don’t grasp the enormity of the ‘math’ and this was apparently something they realized as well. Fortunately for us, the authors gave an illustration to help us visualize the magnitude of such odds: “Suppose that we take 1017th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom.”
I gave you fourteen, just to go slightly above the eight, but I could easily give you another two dozen examples of Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in the New Testament. In fact, some Bible scholars put the number of prophetic scripture at over 300. Simply put, it is impossible beyond calculation. Many will scoff, many will try to attack it, or claim some other reason, but even if you only focus on the sheer volume of prophesy Christ fulfilled, from the time of His baptism by John to His death and resurrection, it is beyond argument.
So if God is real and the Bible is real and Jesus is real, where does that leave us?
As the title of this post asks, ‘Do you believe in Jesus?’
Believe it or not, for many it is not a simple question. The Bible says in James 2:19, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.”
Many have read the Bible and heard the Gospel preached, but do they truly believe in Jesus?
Knowing He exists means nothing. Satan knew Jesus existed; he tested Him in the wilderness. (Luke 4:1-13)
My fear, watching what is going on in the world today, is that too many people know about Jesus, but few believe in Him. We have given our lives over to the secular world, to the exclusion of the spiritual one, but the Bible is very explicit as to what will happen to the world at the end of days and it is not pretty.
“And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.” Revelation 9:6
If we are indeed entering into the ends of times, and from what I can see the argument for that is pretty strong, then it is incumbent on us to make some decisions. We must choose whether we are going to put our faith into God’s word, or roll the dice. The Bible makes it clear that when the end does come, many are going to be caught off guard.
Matthew 24:36 says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”
1 Thessalonians 5:2 says, “For you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
If you are watching the events unfolding in the world, it behooves the believer to get his act together and become a voice for the Lord, so that others will find salvation.
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:16
If you are not a believer, then you probably are asking yourself, ‘How does this impact me?’
Well, to put it bluntly, ‘Just because you don’t believe in God, doesn’t mean that He doesn’t believe in you.”
Romans 2:8 says, “But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness.”
As a former law enforcement officer, let me put it this way: Say you are a criminal, a burglar for that matter, and you are really good at what you do. You are always cautious and you’ve gotten away with your crimes. It’s 11pm and you just settled in for a good night’s sleep, dreaming of your next job. Unbeknownst to you, there’s a SWAT team coming to pay you a visit at 2am, because on your last heist you failed to notice the little spy cam hidden in that teddy bear. You think you got away with it; you don’t think they are coming, but they are.
God’s judgement is going to come on the world and it will be severe. I tremble to think of what life will be like during those days, and I’m happy that I won’t be around to see it. I know you’re probably wondering what that means. The fact is, those who believe in Christ as their Lord and Savior have been forgiven of their sins. In fact, the whole purpose of Jesus coming into this world was to save mankind.
John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And the gift of salvation is just that, a gift. The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
From the beginning we have all fallen short through sin. We have all turned away from God and there was nothing we could ever do to make ourselves holy. So God saved us despite what we had become, through His mercy, and His gift. All we have to do is accept it.
If you have never believed in Jesus, and want to experience the ultimate gift from God in your life, it’s actually quite easy. Think of it like the ABC’s.
Admit you are a sinner: This is where that Godly sorrow leads to genuine repentance for sinning against a righteous God.
Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and that God raised Him up from the dead. This is trusting with all of your heart that Jesus was who He said He was.
Call upon the name of the Lord. Every single person who ever lived, since Adam, will bend their knee and confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord of lords and King of kings.
(ABC’s of salvation, courtesy: https://calvarychapelkaneohe.com/abc-of-salvation)
You say that it is too simple? Okay, is its simplicity such that you won’t accept it? Does that mean when someone offers you a gift, something you have always wanted, whether for your birthday or in celebration of some event, that you refuse it because it is just too simple, or do you accept it with gratefulness because they loved you enough to give you what you wanted?
God’s ready to give you the ultimate gift, all you have to do is accept it from Him.
If you already believe, than you need to turn your focus on bringing others to Christ and that is not through hiding your faith, but living it.
We may not know the day or the hour, but it is coming and we need to be prepared.
In His holy name,
