Why I believe

You have heard it said, “you believe what you want to believe.” Or, “I will believe if there is sufficient evidence to convince me.” Or, this famous one, “Seeing is believing.” Everyone is free to claim any of these statements. For Bible-believing Christians, “Believing is seeing.”

In today’s world it is difficult to believe lots of things. For example, politicians say things that are absolutely unbelievable, particularly when they are running for elected office. 

“I believe in God.” I trust God and I trust His Word. “Let God be true though everyone were a liar.” (Romans 3:4). Without any doubt, this reveals the supremacy of the God of heaven that Christians worship and serve. The Bible says of the patriarch Abraham, “He believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6).

Many years ago I trusted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and the Lord of my life. I did this because I believed that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). This will always be the most important decision I will ever make during my entire life.

I believe the holy Scriptures — the Bible — is a unique Book, because it is the inspired, inherent, and infallible Word of God. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16). This cannot be truthfully said for any other book. Also, God’s word “is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105). 

The Bible says that every human being commits sin, because “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). All means no one is excluded. Isn’t the evidence all around us each and every day. Every human being since the first man, Adam, which God created, is actually conceived in sin. King David declared, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5). This means that from the point of conception in our mother’s womb, we are sinners. And this is exactly where human life begins. Even though some would have us believe otherwise so as to justify their erroneous theories on human conception and birth.

God in His divine mercy, love, and grace has provided the only effective remedy for sin, which is the shed blood and death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Jesus took my sins upon himself when he died on that Roman Cross. The Bible says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24). As a sinner, I can be reconciled to God who alone is just, holy, and righteous. And who does not tolerate or condone sin in any way, shape, or form. God loves us but He hates our sins. He is “of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.” Habakkuk 1:13).

A person is saved by grace alone through faith alone. There is no other way to be right with God. And the person who trusts Jesus Christ as his or her Savior is “sealed” by the Holy Spirit of God. Herein is the guarantee that the Holy Spirit “lives” within that individual to guide and direct his life to please God.      

Paul said to the Ephesians “When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13,14). Note: the indwelling Holy Spirit is the guarantee of the believer’s inheritance. The seal with the promised Holy Spirit means a finished transaction, ownership, and eternal security of believers in Jesus Christ.

Dr Charles Stanley writes: “The Holy Spirit is not with us temporarily—He lives within us from the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and never leaves us. This is the reason we can be sure we have eternal security. Neither sin nor anything else can cause the Lord to forsake us because His Spirit has sealed us in Him forever—guaranteeing our relationship with Him for all eternity.” (The Charles F Stanley Life Principles Bible NKJV p. 1414).