Just Believe-DD 8/312010

"If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" John 3:12

God's wisdom is so amazing. Though He is a God whose ways are as higher than ours as the heaven's are above the earth, He has always chosen to communicate and relate to us in ways that we could understand. In fact, John 1:14 states that He even put on flesh and dwelt among us. He has done everything to equip us to know Him.

In His fleshly state, He often taught in parables. The commonly understood definition of a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Even a cursory examination of the parables involve things such as sheep, farming, relationships between relatives, banquets, the poor, etc. These were all things that were then and in some cases now. We all come into contact with most of them almost daily. These stories, however, were designed to relate the principles of Christianity and godliness.

There was one small problem. There were some who either could not or would not understand. When the apostles asked why he even spoke in parables, he replied, "Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. " In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, 'YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING,BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.' But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear." Matt 13:13-16.

Beloved, on our personal journey to both a meaningful relationship with our Savior and to heaven, the first step is believing what we have been told about him. We must believe he gospel message. We must believe that He is. We then can go on to spiritual maturity which will allow us to shed the earthly in favor of the heavenly. Let us not disdain our eternal inheritance by wrestling over that which should be obvious, Rom 1:20.

In Revival,

Lee