Just Believe

Nancy is an upbeat 19 year old student.  It is remarkable that she has a positive spirit after losing her father at a young age and then living through a Revolution that caused her to live in fear of going outside and kept her from school for a year.  And yet, she happily invited us into her home each week to talk about eternal things.  When we first broached the topic of Jesus, she ran to her room to retrieve her copy of the Bible and turned to John where she had been reading.  “There is an Arabic word in here that I do not understand; the word is Lazarus.”

What a joy for us to get to share with her not only the story of Lazarus, but of how Isa al Messia can make her truly live again as well.  After many, heavy conversations about Islam, the constant fear in which she lives, her own sin and the possibility for eternal life, we left the ball in her court.  “You are good teachers,” she told us, “now I must think about these things for myself”.

Pray that Nancy and many other open-minded and openhearted students like her will hear the voice of Jesus saying, “Little one, wake up”, so that they may truly live.

John 6:28

“The people asked Jesus, “What does God want us to do?”

When it comes down to it, isn’t this “The Question”-What are the works I have to do, that will please God-that will get me to Heaven?  Everybody eventually asks it.  What are the things I must do for a reservation?

It is ironic, but the answer to the question is: there ARE no works good enough, pure enough, sufficient or worthy enough of earning a spot in Heaven!   We are too dirty.  We cannot ‘do it’ ourselves no matter how hard we try – and try we do.  We give it our best efforts, but the bible calls these works filthy, bloody rags.  “All of us have been sinful; even our best actions are filthy through and through. Because of our sins we are like leaves that wither and are blown away by the wind” (Isaiah 64:6).

So what now?  Is there no hope?  Is there nothing we can do? No, we cannot make it happen ourselves…

But God….

God took it upon Himself to fix it.  He came up with a plan to fix our broken, defiled and bloody mess.  God knew we wouldn’t be able to fix ourselves.  It was too great a task for us.  We could not undefile ourselves.  We needed something from outside of ourselves to change the inside of ourselves.   We needed a Savior.

John 6:29

“Jesus answered, “What God wants you ‘to do’ is to believe in the one He sent.”

The work of God is to believe; just believe.  This is so simple!  Jesus tells us one simple word that even a young child could understand.  The ‘work’ of God, is that you believe – There is nothing acceptable to God except yielding to and acknowledging Jesus, Christ your Messiah, the Savior of a lost and dirty world.

Additional Prayers

• We pray for Muslims all around the world who are praying, seeking and fasting during Ramadan will come to know our lovely, forgiving Savior who only asks, believe.

• We pray that people of all nations will see Christ Messiah and chose to believe…just believe.

(permission to use this story was obtained from it’s originating author. Names have been changed to protect identities)