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Thursday, June 9, 2011

“Believing is Seeing”

(part 2 of 2)

“Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”
“You believe at last!” Jesus answered.
John 16:29-31

In John 16, Jesus reveals to His disciples that soon they will see Him no more and then after a little while they will see Him again. The disciples, perplexed by Jesus’ statement, began to ask one another about what He had said:

“They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
John 16:18

The disciples were anxious about Jesus’ remarks. They wanted to know clearly what Jesus meant when He said “soon they would see Him no more and then after a little while they would see Him again.” Where was He going? When was He coming back? What does He mean by “a little while?” Jesus perceiving their apprehension, went on to clarify His message. Like many of us, they wanted to have all the information up front before they would believe.

When Jesus had finished speaking His disciples proclaimed… “NOW we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. THIS makes us believe that you came from God.” Only after they could clearly understand what He was saying would they confess they believed. Notice that it wasn’t Jesus that caused them to believe, it what because “Now” they could see. Jesus knew that their “belief” in Him was not rooted in faith…it was rooted in sight! They only believed because it made sense to them.

However, the definition of faith found in Hebrews 11:1 declares:

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Faith is being able to accept in our Spirit what is undetected by our physical man. It is the kind of faith that great men and women of God were commended for in Hebrews 11:

“By faith Noah, when warned abut things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” Hebrews 11:7

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance , obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”

Hebrews 11:8

In each case, the believing proceeded the seeing. If we are going to live by faith, we too have to believe if we truly want to see.



Pastor Scott Burr
http://faithandworshipseries.blogspot.com

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