Saturday, March 29, 2014

Believe Is a Verb

I find it really interesting how believe and obey are so closely related in the Bible.  I was reading Hebrews 3 today, talking about the people Moses led out of Egypt and how angry God was with those who sinned.   "And to whom was God talking when He promised that they would never enter His rest? He was talking to those who did not obey Him. So we see they were not allowed to enter and have God's rest because they did not believe."  (vs. 18,19)  Obey and believe are synonymous in this passage.  Kinda interesting, huh?

In fact, if you look at the Greek of the word for "did not obey," apitheho, it means, "not to allow one's self to be persuaded, to refuse or withhold belief, to refuse belief and obedience, not to comply with."  It definitely shows just how involved those who did not obey and did not believe were.  It wasn't just a matter of their lack of faith, but a deliberate, stubborn decision to not allow themselves to be persuaded, to refuse or withhold belief even though there was more than enough proof of the truth (remember the Red Sea parting for them?), to not comply with what God was asking of them.  Yep, this was no passive lack of belief, no neutral disobedience. This was a very deliberate decision to not believe, to not obey what they knew to be true, what they had seen to be true, what they have been told was true.


Now I know we don't have things like the Red Sea parting for us, but we do have His Word. Will we believe and obey it?  But how can one believe and obey, without reading and studying what God's Word says?  We can't!  So, what are we gonna do with it?


I sure don't wanna be one of those with whom God was angry because I heard but did not believe or obey!



"Today listen to what He says. 
Do not be stubborn as in the past when you turned again God." 
Psalm 95:7-8 

Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes." Dietrich Bonhoeffer . 

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