Do You Really Believe?

I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies. . . . Do you believe this?
–John 11:25-26

It was the patriarch Job who asked perhaps the most important question of human existence: “If a man dies, will he live again?” (Job 14:14). If my parents die, will they live again? If my mate dies, will she live again? If my child dies, will he live again? When that inevitable day comes that I shut my eyes for the last time here on earth, do I just slip into an eternity of nothingness, or will I live again?

It is the same question that Martha asked the Lord Jesus Christ. Martha, her sister Mary, and her brother Lazarus were some of Jesus’s closest friends here on earth. Word came to Jesus that Lazarus had died, so Jesus made His way to their home in Bethany. As He was approaching the home, Martha came out, and she started to blame the Lord. She said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

He responded, “Your brother will rise again” (John 11:21, 23). And Martha shot back, in essence, “Oh, I know all about that resurrection stuff, Jesus, but I am hurting right now.”

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies. . . . Do you believe this?” (vv. 25-26). He was saying, “Martha, you have been around Me for three years, but do you believe? You have heard Me teach, but do you believe? You have seen these miracles I performed, but do you really believe?”

A few years later, Peter was asking his audience that question on the steps of the temple in Jerusalem, just weeks after Jesus’s death and resurrection. He was saying, “You have to make a decision about who this Jesus is. Was He who He said He was–the long-awaited Messiah who died and rose again that we might have eternal life? You have to decide. Do you really believe?” And he closed his sermon with these words: “Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ–this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).

You have heard the resurrection story, but do you really believe? Do you believe it enough to pin your hopes of the future on the death of Jesus Christ for your sins? If you are trusting in your own goodness, your religious heritage, your baptism, or some other act of righteousness to save you, then your faith is a misplaced faith. Jesus and Jesus alone is worthy of your trust.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “This Man Jesus” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2012.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org