This is a controversial topic and one that is extremely important. In Romans Paul does a beautiful job explaining to the Romans what it means to be a Christian. In Romans 10:9 he says that all that is required is that you confess with your mouth that Jesus is LORD and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. But what does it mean to believe in your heart?

Is having the knowledge of the historical facts the same thing as believing? No, it certainly is not. If having all the knowledge and facts of truth does not change you into a creature who wants nothing more than to please God, because of His pure character; if having the knowledge and facts of truth does not make you fall to your knees in humble admiration of our LORD, realizing how disparately you need Him; and if having these facts does not create a desire in you to be more like Him, then it is not believing, it is just knowing. When you truly believe, the Holy Spirit transforms you.

When our minds and hearts are transformed by the Holy Spirit, we "put on Christ." Paul describes this dramatic change in our hearts and minds as Jesus Christ living within us. We "put off the old man with his deeds" and "put on the new man." We are "renewed" in knowledge and in the spirit of our minds.

"You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:22-24).

There are many Christians who are not setting good examples. They say they believe, but they have not changed into the new creature. This is obvious by their hatefulness, selfishness and disrespect toward others. This is why Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the LORD with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength; and the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. One acid test you can do for yourself to help you understand if you heart is like Jesus' is to reflect inward and ask yourself if you are following these two commandments. Is God first in all that you do? Do you have love in your heart for even your enemies?

The second acid test you should do to help you understand if you are truly saved, is to ask yourself if you believe that God has the power to heal you from your sinfulness. Christians easily get that God can heal cancer, but struggle with believing that He also has the power to heal them from their sin. This is what believing in Christ is about. Here is how you know that to be true. Every time Jesus healed someone He told them to stop sinning. Would Jesus tell people to do something if it were impossible? No, of course not! But it is impossible if you do not believe.

God gave us forgiveness before Jesus came. Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister, but he was still allowed to go to heaven. David committed murder and adultery, but was still allowed into heaven. So, Jesus didn't just come so we could be forgiven, He also came so we could believe. He came so we would have what we needed to fulfill the scriptures where we are called to be holy and perfect like our Father (1 Peter 1:13-16, Matthew 5:48).

Now, I would like to spend some time talking about why this is difficult to understand. Theologians call this the hiddenness of God. God chooses to reveal Himself to us when are hearts are in the right place, which is when we are willing to allow Him to have the authority in our lives. He does not allow us to see because we are wise. He does not allow us to see because we keep His laws. He allows us to see, when we give Him authority. He allows us to see when we are humble and childlike.

John 7:17 “Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own.”

Luke 10:21-24 At that same time Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and he said, “Oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.

“My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the son chooses to reveal him.”

Then they were alone, he turned to the disciples and said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you have seen. I tell you many prophets and kings longed to see what you see, but the didn't see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn't hear it.”

Psalm 145:18-20 The LORD is close to all who call on Him, yes, to all who call on Him in truth. He grants the desires of those who fear Him; he hears their cries for help and rescues them. The LORD protects all those who love him, but He destroys the wicked.

Jeremiah 29:13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.

God chooses to open our eyes when our hearts are fixed on Him and His will in our lives. If we are still relying on ourselves and still consider that we are the authority, we will not be able to see God or truly believe in Him.

So, how do we learn to believe? How do we make our hearts childlike, so we are able to see God? The first step is to submit to God. Submission almost always precedes the knowledge of God, because He will not reveal Himself to you until you want to know Him for Him. God will not reveal Himself to you, if you are only coming to Him because you need something from Him. When you want to know God for God, because you love Him more than anything else, because you understand His power and authority in your life, it is that moment when He will open your eyes and allow you to see.

Seeing Through God's Lens

A beautiful young girl stood in front of a full length mirror, looking at her reflection. She stood approximately 5'4.5” tall and had a slim, toned build, weighing about 80 lbs. However, this is not what she saw when she looked at her reflection. Through her lens, she saw someone who was fat and ugly and she was certain there was no boy who could ever love her, because of how she looked.

What is going on here? This was the beautiful singer, Karen Carpenter. If you don't know who that is, do a YouTube search on the song We've Only Just Begun. Karen died because she had an eating disorder called Anorexia. Karen's lens did not see correctly. It had become distorted, causing her to view herself as fat. So, she stopped eating and eventually she died.

Our lens gets messed up because of the world we live in and all the sin around us. Children who experience the horrible act of being raped or molested, especially have this problem. Their view of who they are becomes completely destroyed by this act of evil. They grow up and learn to use alcohol or drugs to escape the horrible pain of who they are and what they have become. They try to escape their reality, because of how destructive this sin is to their spirit.

Women who are being abused by their husbands, go back to them again and again and continue to take beatings, which send them to the emergency room. In their minds hey don't believe they deserve any better. This hostile environment is their definition of love.

A little girl age 18 months, is molested by her babysitter. She has no recollection of this act, but she grows up and begins to cut her arms. She feels she has a demon inside her and she cuts herself to release it. She feels nothing, so she cuts herself because pain is better than feeling nothing.

A 16 year old girl has her virginity taken away by a man much older than her. She said no, but she was not strong enough to get away. He was a friend, she thought. She thought he really liked her and wanted to love her, but he only wanted to take her virtue and then discard her like a piece of trash. This little girl grows up wanting nothing more than to feel loved by a man. She makes horrible choices each time she decides to make a relationship commitment. She sees the man's character flaws, but makes exceptions and excuses for them, because she feels she deserves nothing that is good.

This is how destructive sin is to us. All sin is destructive like this, but I'm using the clear examples in order for you to see and understand. Sin always replicates itself. For the little girl who was raped, sin replicated to her and told her how guilty she was for letting it happen. The guilt festered and grew. She threw away years of her life doing drugs and dancing in a topless bar, because she didn't think she deserved any better.

Satan uses these opportunities to confuse us and distort how we see ourselves and the world. It is only when we view ourselves and each other through the clear lens of the Gospel that we begin to see clearly. If we do not understand God's Word, this is an impossible task.

So, here it is. What the Gospel of Christ is all about is this: God loved us so much that he sent His only son to die on a cross as justification or payment for our sins. God released His mighty wrath on Jesus, instead of those who deserved it - us. This is a picture of God's grace. We deserved the punishment, but He sent a substitute to stand in our place. Now, because of Jesus, we have the option to be forgiven and to live for eternity with our Father. This is a free gift, offered from our Father. All we need to do is believe and receive it.

There is no other religion like Christianity. All the others focus on what you DO. Christianity focuses on what was DONE for you. All other religions focus on a man who was wise and lived by good morals and character and then died. Christianity is God humbling himself enough to come down to earth and walk in the dirt along side of us to experience our suffering and temptations and then die on a cross receiving our punishment, so we could be saved. But the best part is that in three days, He rose from the dead, just as the prophecies had predicted nearly a thousand years before Christ's birth.

When you truly understand how much God loves you and all that He has done to save you, you can start to view yourself through His lens instead of you own. When this happens, you start to see the truth about who you are in Christ. The depression begins to vanish. The worry calms. The pills for sleep and anxiety are no longer needed. When you view yourself in the mirror, you see a beautiful and loving soul, who may not be perfect, but sure wants to be. When you look at others, you are no longer judgmental and hateful, focused only on their faults; instead, you are now loving toward toward them, because now you see their beauty despite their sin.

You begin to crave an understanding for who Jesus is and how He designed us to live. You act on this craving by seeking wisdom through God's Word. You begin to understand God's laws for our lives and you take steps to be obedient, because you love Him. You work to put God first in all that you do, because you understand that not putting Him first opens the door to all other sinful behavior. God begins to bless you greatly because of you love for Him and you find that the peace and love inside you feels so wonderful that you must tell everyone you know and love about this wonderful gift of Jesus.

The greatest gift is not just to be loved, but to be known and loved. This is what we all seek and it is what God seeks as well.