Behavior or Relationship

Today we want to highlight that faith is something more than what is generally thought about the word "believe". In John 6 it tells us that the Jewish leaders came to Jesus and asked Him:

"What must we do to do the works of God? (v.28). Jesus answered them: 'This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He has sent.'"

What does the word "believe" imply? Faith in Christ, which leads to salvation, is not what many suppose. "Believe, believe!" – is their cry. – "Just believe in Christ and you will be saved." One of the most popular ideas about faith is that it is simply an intellectual feeling, recognizing that Christ exists, and nothing more. Related to the growing emphasis given to the subject of salvation by faith in Christ alone, fundamentally correct, by the way, there is unfortunately an immature, naive, and liberal-prone practice that insists that all you have to do is believe, just believe; in the context in which it appears in the Bible, it will be discovered to have a meaning different from that given by these preachers, much deeper indeed.

When the Jewish leaders asked Jesus the question in our verse, they were clinging to the idea of their time that one must earn heaven and make their way to it. Their question referred to behavior: "What must we do to carry out the works of God?" What they were really saying was: "What can we do to earn heaven?" Immediately, Jesus shifted their attention from personal behavior to a relationship with the Lord when He said: "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He has sent." It is all settled. First of all, this "believing" is not based on what, but on who. It is not about what set of doctrines or which creed we consider correct or what we have to do. "I know in whom I have believed, not in what I have believed.

The faith that leads to salvation is a very deep trust, a result of a personal relationship with Christ Jesus.