Starting with Your Belief || The Jesus Connection #1

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.” – John 15:5-6

What does it mean to remain in Jesus? How can we connect with Jesus to have a strong relationship with him? This is what our new series will be about. Over the next five parts, we will examine different statements that we believe in as Christians when it comes to understanding who Christ is. This series is called “The Jesus Connection” because I aim to strengthen your connection to who Jesus is and what believing in him can do for your life.

In this blog, we look at the fact that Christians believe Jesus is God’s Son.

1 John 4:13-17

13           And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

14           Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

15           All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.

16           We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love in God, and God lives in them.

17           And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

When we become Christians, we receive the Holy Spirit. We may not have the Pentecost moment shown in Acts 2. Still, we have a new energy source, confidence, and boldness to go out and fulfill the Great Commission and build God’s kingdom. God’s presence showing up in our lives is proof that we really belong to him. He also pours out his love in us and gives us the power to live. The belief that the Holy Spirit resides in us proves that God chose us, and we chose him. Many times throughout my life, I have done or said things that I don’t consciously think about or plan, both positive and negative. Some of these were emotionally fueled reactions that ended with a negative outcome. Yet, there were a lot of positive outcomes that were shown through the works of the Holy Spirit. Sermons I’ve given that I may have planned, but the Holy Spirit spoke. I had to give consequences where I didn’t react like usual. I want to give resources to those around me when they ask willingly, even though I’d prefer to hold on to them. The responses internally from those situations have stunned, shocked, and surprised me. Still, they have formed a strong foundation for me as a Christian and how I care for those around me. That same type of power resides in you. Lean on that power as you reach out to others. The more you do it, the more confidence you will gain and the more Christ-like you will become.

John refers to the Day of Judgment at the end of our passage. It’s a time when all of us will appear before Jesus and be held accountable for our actions. What this day looks like is hard to describe. There are many different views on reading Revelation, and there is no unanimous viewpoint on any of the “Day of the Lord” passages. If you’d like to learn more, I’d encourage you to go and watch BibleProject’s video or listen to their podcast about the “Day of the Lord.” Jon and Tim do an outstanding job explaining the concept and its context related to the times it was mentioned in the Bible.

For us, there is no fear of this upcoming day. Because we have the spirit of God living in us, we have been forgiven and saved from any punishment. Believers can look forward to the Day of Judgment (an alternative form of the Day of the Lord) because it’ll mean the end of sin and the beginning of a face-to-face relationship with Jesus. The end of sin refers to our transition from earthly life to eternal life. We can now meet our Savior and learn to live our lives with the most joy we ever have.

The thing to take away from this is that our belief that Jesus is God’s son is what will lead us to eternal life. Why is this important?

1 John 5:5

5             And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

What battle is being talked about here?

1 John 5:1-4

1             Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too.

2             We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments.

3             Loving God means keeping his commandments, which are not burdensome.

4             For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.

The battle is against the evil in this world. It sounds like a big task. What’s considered evil to you may not be evil to me. Let’s use the original Greek to get our universal definition.

I will use the term “evil” Jesus uses in Matthew 12 to create our universal definition, mainly because what Jesus considers evil should be what we consider evil.

Evil is the Greek adjective ponéros (pon-ay-ros’), which describes something toilsome or bad. It describes something as evil, bad, wicked, malicious, or slothful. It’s derived from the Greek word pónos (pon’-os), which describes pain, laborious, or trouble. In essence, it focuses on the inevitable misery that goes with something evil. The concept comes from laboring. If we put all this together, evil is something terrible that comes with us laboring through our miseries of life.

We battle the terrible things in our lives and world that cause us to labor through them and make us miserable. We overcome these battles by loving God and following his commandments. It means we love God with all of who we are and love our neighbors as Christ loved us. We know God loves us as a parent loves their child. When we become Christians, we are adopted into God’s family, where all other Christians around us are our brothers and sisters. Some of us have rough family dynamics where abuse, narcissism, and chaos run the show. Evil has overtaken or overtaken your family, but through Christ, we have the power to change the story. Christ breaks the chains that have held your family down for generations. You can be the conduit to change the course of your family line and the community around you. It starts with believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of our Almighty Father.

Let’s wrap that up here. I’ll be back with Part 2 soon as we examine why we need to follow Jesus as our Savior and our Lord. Until then, friends, stay blessed!