BELIEVE? IT CAN'T BE THAT SIMPLE, OR CAN IT?

John 6:29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

John 6:47-48 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. 

Believe, all you have to do is believe.  How many of us have heard this yet never really pay attention? We are so wrapped up in fulfilling a list of requirements that mere belief seems way too simple.  When we join an organization or become a member of a club, there is a list of things we need to do, agree to and fulfill before we are accepted.  When we want to apply for a job, we have to fill out an application, there is process.  Interviews, referrals, background checks, then more interviews and sometimes there is test we have to take.  Think about it!  It seems like everything we do has some list of requirements that must be met before we are even considered.  There has to be more.  There has to be a catch, maybe it's in the fine print?  It really saddens me how much we complicate things, even this. We doubt that all we have to do is believe.  We speculate that it can't be so simple, there just has to be more.  We investigate the facts, we search for the answers looking for the hidden factor no one else has discovered.  We doubt these statements after all nothing in life is free.  No one just hands us anything, we have to work for what we have.  Not many of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouth, so to say it is simple as just believing just seems illogical.  There has to be more.

 "Religions", different denominations, have rules and requirements.  Jesus didn't.   He stated it plain and clear.  Believe!  No matter what other "religions" or denominations say, there is no class we have to take, no list of prayers to memorize, no required dress code, no sacraments that have to be completed, no fasting required, no W2 forms to be turned in, no bank account information necessary.  There is nothing that Jesus requires except belief.  We are so prone to complicating things that we analyze and scrutinize every detail of this statement.   I have heard a variety of reasons for some of these man made rules and rituals that some churches have, but for me it is simple; if it's not in the Bible, than it's not God's Word.  It is true that we do have to have rules and laws in this world to survive.  For me as a true believer, a true Christian, the only "religious" law I will follow are those stated by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  The Bible is plain and simple and so is Jesus, believe.  We could spend our entire life searching for the correct way to have eternity, we can investigate all the facts and we can go from church to church, religion to religion, denomination to denomination.  That my friends would be a waste of time because the Bible is the word of God (at least to me it is).  In my eyes we either believe what it says 100% or we don't.  We cannot pick and chose what to believe in the Bible.  For me it is 100% true!  So when Jesus says that, "Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life."   Trust me, I believe!  It is simple!  

     I did not always believe in the way Jesus told us to believe. (Now I am not bashing any certain religion, I am going by how I was raised in my church, my personal experiences.) In my church there was a list of rituals and man made rules I had to follow.  In order to be accepted by God I had to be baptized as a baby (I couldn't go to heaven unless I was baptized), make my First Communion in 2nd grade, confess my sins to a priest in 4th grade (and then on a regular basis in order to be forgiven and accepted by God), then confirmed with the Holy Spirit in 8th grade.  To be honest there are so many children in my school that did it because it was expected.  If one of us ever said "Well I don't think I'm ready for this sacrament", we were chastised and made fun of.   Most of us just went through the motions just to please our teachers, our parents and God.  We felt He would be angry with us if we didn't.  We were truly way to young to fully understand what was happening and why we doing it. Growing up I always had a longing for something more.   There had to be more to this Jesus thing than just a list of sacraments and rules.  Belief was something stated in our prayers, but the true belief that comes from the heart was never talked about.  Stating out loud in front of the whole church, being born again and saved by the blood of Jesus Christ was not discussed.  That was for those weird "Christians"  I sat in church for many years reciting the most phenomenal prayers about Jesus Christ, yet no one else seemed to be as touched by them as me.  I would glance around the church and notice everyone just reciting them, a routine they said for years without fully comprehending what was being said.  I listened to bits and pieces of stories from the Bible without getting the whole story.  

 My entire life I thought I knew who Jesus was.  I believed in Him, but I never changed anything about who I was and what I was doing.  I knew all I had to do was go to confession and the priest would forgive me and then so would God. 7 years ago I said the Salvation prayer and really accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.  When I did, everything about me began to change.  What I watched on TV, what I read, the music I listened to, how I talked to others and how I interacted with others, all began to change.  I began to notice the homeless man on the street corner and give him a few dollars.  I began reading the Bible, in fact I read the whole Bible in a year.  I began writing about Jesus Christ and then this blog came into my life.   The peace and joy I have felt in the past 7 years has been amazing.  Jesus Christ changed me and changed my heart and my life for the better.  He cannot do that unless you truly belief.  
Stop complicating this!  Stop over analyzing everything!  Simple take a leap of faith and just belief!

Lord help me to learn to truly believe in you.  Help me to stop over complicating things and just believe. In Jesus name I pray, amen.