Believe

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us (1 John 3:23).

"I believe in living today. Not in yesterday, nor in tomorrow." (Loretta Young)

"I believe in the compelling power of love." (Theodore Dreiser)

"I believe in being an innovator." (Walt Disney)

"I guess darkness serves a purpose: to show us that there is redemption through chaos. I believe in that. I think that's the basis of Greek mythology." (Brenden Fraser)

"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong." (John Lennon)

What—or who—do you believe in?

Different people believe in different things—and by that, they usually mean that they have confidence in something or someone, or they mentally agree with what a candidate has proposed, or they are sympathetic to a cause. But does what you believe actually change your life? Does it make any difference in the way you live your life?

Even belief in God—we hear plenty of people claim to have a belief in God (often not the Christian God, just some generic civil god), and yet their lives don't match any sort of belief in anything except themselves. Or we hear people "thank God" for some achievement and yet in the pursuit of that achievement, the focus was mostly on themselves.

We're taught to believe in ourselves from the cradle, and we absorb that teaching quite well.

But Jesus' command to believe is quite different. He doesn't call us to believe in ourselves. He doesn't command us to believe in some generic god. He doesn't even call us to believe in love. He calls us (commands us) to believe in his name (and then practice love). That's what John says. "Believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Or, as Peter put it when he was arrested by the ruling council of Jerusalem, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

To quote an old song, there is something about that name.

What—or who—do you believe in? And will it hold you through the storms or through the difficult days? Is what you believe in strong enough to save you?

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." (C. S. Lewis)