Believing or Belonging?

“He came to His own people, and even they rejected Him. But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn – not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.” (John 1:11-13 NLT)

There’s a huge difference between believing in Jesus and belonging to Him. The Apostle James reminds us that even the demons believe in Jesus, and they have eternal life, but not in heaven. Eternal life is a gift for every human being, but don’t be confused, just because we’re all going to live forever doesn’t mean we’re all going to heaven.

We have to remember that this is only one of many descriptions of what it means to come to Christ, to belong to Him. Jesus spoke of coming to Him in the Gospels of Luke and John, but the point here is simply this: Belonging to Jesus is an act of the will that is illustrated and demonstrated in and through every avenue of our being.

To say we belong to Jesus, yet still live like the devil is to fool ourselves and to live a lie. Does that mean once we come to Jesus we’ll never sin again? No, of course not, but it does mean that we won’t live in habitual sin.

Paul was clear when he wrote in Romans 6:12-14: “Do not let sin control the way you live, do not give into sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.”

This process must begin with our spiritual “birth.” Words don’t change us, action motivated by the Holy Spirit does. It begins with an act of God as He regenerates our spirit, giving us a new heart, then filling us with His Spirit, giving us a new Owner and Guide. To belong to Jesus means we no longer belong to ourselves, which means we stop listening to our “heart” and start listening to God.

Jesus said in John 8:47a: “Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God.” But we can’t “hear” what He’s saying without the Spirit to give us understanding. Without new birth in Jesus there’s no foundation upon which a relationship can be built. Birth equals relationship. As a believer in Jesus, we are born into the family of God, His Church, but the irony becomes, many who are part of the many different groups of God’s people in what is commonly called a “church” building or gathering, may be believers, but are not necessarily “belongers.”

We can be surrounded by Christianity and still miss Christ. We can believe in Him with all our heart, but if we’re still trying to run our own lives and ignoring Christ’s leadership by His Spirit, we may believe all we want, but we won’t belong until we lay our lives at the foot of the Cross and cry out for what Christ alone can give us – forgiveness and new life in Him.

That’s the difference between belief and faith. Belief is an intellectual assent, but faith is the step from our head to our heart where we stop trying to save ourselves by believing we’re good enough as we are, and start realizing there’s nothing good about us without Jesus. Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father without Him. No one belongs until Jesus’ Father becomes our Father.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊