Belief…do you believe?


faithbeliefIn the world today, there are many who don’t believe in Jesus or the Bible itself yet it is the inspired Word of God. Although many people don’t believe even that the Bible is God’s Word but just a collection of stories written by a bunch of men. The Bible is so much more than that!

It was written under the direction and influence of the Holy Spirit and the words which are contained in it come from God. Yes, it was written by forty different men over a period of more than 1500 years. That in itself is amazing because if all of those men from different times, even centuries apart, could write a book which told of a Savior Who would come to save the world, then how could they have made the stories up?!

Belief is also bound up in faith because you can’t believe in the miracles or in our Savior without faith even if it is as small as a grain of mustard seed. The tiniest bit of faith can be used by God to accomplish many things, far beyond what you would think. When the will of God is involved in anything, it will be accomplished no matter the size of your faith!

Give your life and your heart to Jesus, as well as all that you have, and He will multiply it back to you and into His Kingdom in ways that can’t be imagined. I pray that this will encourage you to follow Jesus and ask Him into your life. Why? Because, I have to…it is my job to tell others about Him! I can’t keep quiet because He is in control and His power goes into the world to heal from this time forward! God has not stopped healing or mending broken hearts and lives.

Thank you for your time and may God richly bless you in all of the ways that you need, in Jesus’ Holy Name, Amen.

The Ten Commandments of the Lord


Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
Exodus 20:7-17 KJV
http://bible.com/1/exo.20.7-17.KJV

How many times is the word “believe” found in the Bible?


How many times does the word “believe” or one derived from it show up in the Bible?

The word or one with believe inside it, appears 249 times in the Bible. You would be astonished at how few times it really shows up in the Old Testament though. I have published this elsewhere on another site of mine under another name, but I am putting the same disclaimer here: I researched this information using the search function on my Kindle Fire inside the King James Bible. The results may be different from other areas or concordances but the numbers that I have here came from this search alone.

In Exodus, it shows up six times. That is all of the times that the word believe or believeth is present in the book of Exodus, the chronicle of Israel’s journey out of Egypt and on the way to becoming a nation.

In the book of Numbers, it only shows up one time and that is in chapter 14. Why does belief or believe not show up any more than this? God is the only One who knows that answer.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the word only shows up one time in chapter one. Strange isn’t it? A fundamental word that goes along with and that the Christian faith hinges on seems to be absent from the very books that were written at a time when belief should have been easy because of the miracles being done by God for the people of Israel.

In the Christian Bible, the next time that it shows up is in the book of 2 Kings in chapter seventeen and it is only present that one time.

The next time is in 2 Chronicles in and it shows up twice in chapter twenty. Then once more in chapter thirty-two.

After that, it shows up three times in the book of Job, once in chapter nine and twice in chapter thirty-nine.

It also shows up in Proverbs in chapter 26 once, and it isn’t referring to belief in God even then.

Then it makes an appearance twice in Isaiah in chapter seven and in chapter forty-three.

In the Old Testament, the word only shows up twice more after this. Once each in Jeremiah chapter 12 and once in Habakkuk chapter 1.

So, altogether in the Old Testament believe or a word derived from it shows up a total of 20 times. Even during the time of their liberation from Egypt when God was doing so many miracles and wonders, belief or believe never came up much and out of the thirty-eight or thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, depending upon which Bible you have, the word “believe” only shows up twenty times, why?

The New Testament seems to have most of the occurrences of this word. Why? Because belief was and is necessary, along with faith, in the One that we should believe in, Jesus.

In Matthew alone believe shows up nine times!

In Mark it shows up 18 times, almost as many as in the entire Old Testament!

In Luke, believe shows up nine times, but in the book of John alone it shows up 94 times! Now, this sounds like a lot and in some results that I have searched through it showed up only forty-three times.
That is because some searches on the Internet Bible boards only show exactly the word “believe”, while the search that I did shows it and the word of believeth as well because I was searching through the King James Bible.

The point that I am making is that John’s gospel and the books written by him all focus on our belief in Jesus and in Who He was and Who He is. Yes, the demons of Satan and Satan himself believe in Jesus but they don’t have the same belief as we do. They will not bow to Him nor will they serve Him because they have chosen to be against Him and against God. So, how many times have we charted the word “believe” so far? At this point, only 150 times between the Old and New Testaments up to the book of John. So, there are about ninety-nine more occurrences of the word believe or believeth in the New Testament.

Why so much emphasis on belief? Believing in Jesus does save your soul! It is the first step toward a life of service to Him and in your sanctified life with Him. Belief doesn’t and cannot come to someone without God’s grace touching your soul, your heart and bringing you to a point of realization that you truly NEED Jesus as your Savior! Believing that Jesus accomplished everything needed for you to be saved doesn’t come to you from works and it doesn’t come to you when you decide to do so because you don’t decide to become saved. God is the One Who calls you to be saved through your belief in Jesus as your Savior.

Being a Christian is a process that begins with belief in Jesus and in His message for our lives and taking that message into your heart, striving to become more like Jesus daily. What does that mean? Asking forgiveness for your sins by confessing what you have done and accepting God’s forgiveness because of your decision to accept Jesus as your Savior is just the beginning of your walk with Him. Searching through the scriptures for references to Jesus is a wonderful exercise that will increase your faith in the truthfulness of God’s Word, but it will also humble you because you will find that God has loved us, not just Israel, for an eternity. He has known each person and how they will choose to live their lives since before the world began. Your life after accepting Jesus as your Savior doesn’t require you to work out your salvation. But…you will want to learn more of God’s Word because you will want to know your Heavenly Father and reading His Word is the best way to learn how He speaks from it and to us.

That is why belief in Who the Trinity of the Godhead is important to your salvation, because all three Persons of the Trinity are involved in your salvation every day. Belief in Jesus is the first step, accepting Him as your Savior is the second step, confession of your sins is another step along the road of becoming a Christian. God sent Jesus to do the work of reconciling mankind to Himself by being the perfect sacrifice for all of our sins, which He did. Then, the Holy Spirit, which is another part of the Trinity, comes into your life when you are saved and teaches you while you search for more of His Truth. So, the entire Person of the Trinity is involved in your becoming a fruitful Christian, not just Jesus.

Please forward this to anyone that you know that needs to come to Jesus. It is important because God thinks that they are important and that you are important. We all have a part to play in God’s plan, some may have a small part and some may have a bigger part. Just as the different parts of our body do their jobs, we as Christians need to do our job regardless of the role that we play in God’s plan and His Kingdom.

Give God the Glory that He deserves, because I cannot continue doing this alone. I am not alone of course, I have Him and His Spirit to guide me and you do too. The words that I have put here don’t come from my mind alone, but from His. I am just a messenger, but don’t disregard the message.