What does it mean to believe in Jesus? In the West, we have adopted such a worldly, humanistic and Greek understanding of this word, “belief,” that we have disconnected from the true meaning of the word. To believe to the Hebrew, meant if you profess something, it means that you live it. So many christians profess their faith to Jesus without allegiance to Jesus and his words and this is not real Christianity. Christianity is about wholehearted obedience to Jesus. To God, love and obedience is inseparable. When we look at the life of Jesus he was always practicing what he preached. He even rebuked the pharisees for not practicing what they preached. We cannot become a people who say that they are Christians but devoid of following Jesus’ footsteps. The temptation of our generation is to adopt a feel-good comfortable Christianity that meets our needs, rather than a mission-driven Christianity that meets God’s needs.

Because I grew up in a western society, it took a long time for me to truly understand the Hebraic understanding of Christianity. I thought that simply going to church, praying some prayers during meal times and having a quiet time was Christianity. But when I began to actually read the gospels, I had a realization that Jesus wanted me to be his disciple, which meant to wholeheartedly follow in His footsteps. Once obedience became my expression of love for Jesus, I began to tap into an exhilarating life of miracles, where people were delivered from demons and people would come out of their sickbeds healed.

The gospels is a window into God on the earth. I was so overly familiarized by the stories of Jesus that I treated him with contempt. He was more of a historical figure, a baby in a manger, a good moral teacher, rather than God Supreme who is to be loved, adored and obeyed. It wasn’t until I began to read the Sermon on the Mount and I fell madly in love with Him. His wisdom, the truth, the love poured forth from the pages into my heart. My heart was strangely warmed and Jesus became my magnificent obsession.

We must be careful not become dull towards God. Satan blinds our eyes from the truth. If the thought of Jesus does not exhilarate you, then you have been deceived. Repent and reread the gospels and ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and revelation concerning God’s Son.

Jesus is not popular in our world today, because there is an Anti-Christ Spirit on the earth. That spirit is invisible, but we see its effects. Snow White is not banned, but the Bible is banned in 54 countries. Buddha, Muhammad and Confucius are not cuss words, but Jesus Christ is a cuss word. There are religions and cults that completely deny that God came in the flesh, his death or his resurrection. This is the cornerstone of our faith. This is a great deception.

It’s often suggested that Christianity is based on blind faith, but atheism is based on evidence. There are a number of reasons why that’s a faulty assumption, but for one thing it fails to recognize that Christianity stands or falls precisely on evidence. The Bible itself appeals to first-hand eye-witness accounts to substantiate the claim that Jesus physically rose from the dead.

There is a broad scholarly consensus even amongst non-Christian scholars (e.g. Jews, atheists, etc.) around a few key facts. World’s top ancient historians would agree on these key facts:
1. Jesus existed.
2. Jesus was crucified by the Romans and buried in a tomb?
3. Jesus’ tomb was found empty three days later. (most will agree)
4. Many of Jesus’ followers claimed to have seen him alive and started to spread that news to others.

First of all, some historians suggest the early Christians simply lied. But the problem with this explanation is that the early Christians simply had nothing to gain by lying about Jesus’ resurrection. They didn’t get power, they didn’t become rich. In fact, the earliest Christians actually faced ostracism and persecution because of their claim about Jesus rising from the dead. Paul was repeatedly beaten, stoned, imprisoned, faced countless sufferings for being a Christian, and was eventually executed for it! Why would he go through all that for what he knew was a lie?

Some scholars conclude that these first Christians weren’t lying: they simply hallucinated. But there are some pretty fatal flaws in this explanation too. Firstly, medically speaking, corporate hallucinations just don’t happen. As psychologist Gary Collins says, “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a hallucination at a time.”

Since it can’t have been lies, and it doesn’t make sense for it to be hallucinations, another explanation for the presenting evidence is that Jesus actually, physically, rose from the dead, just like his followers claimed.

Belief in Jesus is based on fact, not feelings. There is so much overwhelming evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, that there is nothing more foolish than to reject Jesus without any investigation at all. You would deny the very Being of the Cosmos who can cleanse all of your sin, bring you into right standing with God, so that you can enjoy Him and heaven for all of eternity.

C.S. Lewis said it well, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”