Really Believing God

Really Believing God

It is not just a matter of believing in the atonement and in God’s grace and love for mankind, it is also a matter of believing in His omnipotence, His all-encompassing goodness, His omniscience, in His perfect guidance of everything and everyone, and in His wonders and miracles!!!

If people had really believed God as God over all things, they would have entered into a deep rest in God.

Mark 6:49-52 is an exceptionally good example. Instead of believing God, they believed in ghosts, crying out and screaming in fear! They were extremely terrified and amazed, as if it was something extraordinary that the wind had ceased, despite the fact that Jesus had just recently performed a miracle in front of their eyes!

It says very pointedly that they had not gained understanding from this miracle. It had not had a lasting effect on them!!! It is even more significant that it is written, “Their heart was hardened.” This is therefore the correct term when God’s works do not have a lasting effect on us.

How incredibly far away most believers are from having entered into His rest! Heb. 4. The noise of daily life! What a torrent of the many different kinds of discordant and jarring sounds! What a range of useless talk, of utter emptiness, and of downright stupidity!

What a countless number of wills, opinions, and desires! What chaos! Nothing of all this can in any way be united with rest in God! All this exists outside of Him!

The author of the revue “Much Ado About Nothing!” was absolutely correct when he called it by that name. Most believers lead an extremely selfish life! Therefore there is all this hubbub about nothing, even for the least trifle. However, the apostle Paul could testify about something that is totally different! God be praised for time and eternity!!! For example, Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live . . . .”

Being dead with Christ in the midst of still living in this world—what a miracle that is!!! Just as if you had literally passed away.

Let us believe in the God of miracles! And let us consider that outward miracles are of vanishingly small significance in comparison to the transforming miracles in our inner man, to God’s glory and praise for time and all eternity!

What an unimaginably great miracle it is that a wretched man, in the midst of this evil world, can enter into complete rest in God, completely untouched by everything in this world!