what do you believe about god?
As the Christmas season just passed, it may be fresh in your mind how your kids asked you for Christmas presents. Presumably, like at our house, you received an Amazon or Target Christmas catalog in the mail without ordering one. Once your children found those, they chose what they wanted for Christmas by rifling through the magazine and circling everything they wanted. Maybe this was not your experience with your children this year; however, consider this may have been your yearly routine when you were a child, except the magazines were Sears, Roebuck, & Co., JC Penney, or Macy’s. Once Christmas day was near, and the choosing was complete, the children would walk over to the parents and present this gift proposal as circled items within the magazine pages.
What boldness! What did they believe about you to confidently invest all that time thinking, dreaming, choosing, and presenting?
What they had in mind was that you could help with what they needed or wanted compared to them and their resources. They were asking things of you according to what they believed about you. They believed that you were kind. They believed you were wealthy. They believed that you cared. They knew how you treated them even when they messed up. They knew that you’d given them a coin at the arcade. They knew that you wiped their tears away when they were sad. When they asked for bread (aka. pizza), they knew you wouldn’t give them a stone. When they asked for fish (aka. mac and cheese), they knew you wouldn’t give them a snake. Although we are all imperfect and in the process of becoming more like Jesus, we know how to provide and give good gifts to our children without being told how or when. (Matthew 7:7-11). Since that is true about ourselves, I ask, what do you believe about God?
Do you believe: For God so loved you that He gave His one and only Son, that when you believe in Him, you shall not perish but have eternal life? God did not send His Son to condemn you but to save you through Him. When you believe in Him, you are not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16-18). Do you believe that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how Jesus went around doing good and healing all the devil oppressed because God was with Him? (Acts 10:38). Do you believe: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life? That no one can come to the Father except through Him? If you know Jesus, you also know who his Father is because since Jesus was on earth, you have known Him and have seen Him. (John 14:6-7).
You can now confidently step out in faith with the correct beliefs to ask, search, and knock. God, our good father, will help you receive, find, and open the door. Your heavenly Father is even more ready than us to give good things to those who ask Him. (Matthew 7:7-11).
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me. Thank you for saving me and, by your grace, completely forgiving me so I can be in eternity with you in heaven. I believe and declare that I know your nature of doing good and healing all because I have read the works of Jesus. By faith, I know you are a good, good Father. Because of what you already have with your son Jesus, I know I can boldly come to you asking, seeking, and knocking. In Jesus’s mighty name I pray, Amen.
