John 5:44-47
“How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you-Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
In this passage, Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders of Israel. This passage is just the ending excerpt from a rather exhaustive dissertation by Jesus in response to the Jews who were trying to kill Him for 1. healing on the Sabbath, and 2. making Himself equal with God. The mind-boggling thing is that these men were attempting to enforce a law that they didn’t believe in! Jesus said that they “trusted in Moses” meaning that they trusted that if they kept all of the commandments perfectly then they would remain sinless, God’s chosen and safe from His wrath. But Jesus told them that He knew that they were evil and wrong and yet He would not accuse them to God. He said that the one who would accuse them is the one they trusted. This meant that when they completed all of their pious and religious works in accordance with the law of Moses but had no actual heart or sentiment toward God then the law itself would show them as failures. The Word of God judges the heart as a director of actions. In fact, Hebrews 4:12 says in part that the Word of God discerns between the thoughts and the intents of the heart! That means that if your actions are right on the outside and your heart is wrong then your actions don’t count! They have to agree.
Further, Jesus goes on to tell them that they don’t believe Moses. What He meant was that Moses wrote more than just the law, He wrote about Jesus, pointed the Israelites towards their Messiah but they thought it was just about do and don’t do! Jesus asked them how they would believe His words if they did not believe the writings of Moses…. He said this referring to the fact that the things Jesus said affirmed the things Moses wrote. The principle holds true for us today. We can read the scripture all day but if we don’t believe what we read; we won’t believe what we hear from a preacher coming to explain it. And we certainly would not believe if the voice of God comes to our ears speaking the Word!
Let us not, however, distort Romans 10:17- which states that faith comes by hearing and hearing {comes} by the Word of God.
The faith that we need to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the faith that we need to believe in healing, in prosperity, in peace, in restoration, in victory is deposited in our spirits as soon as we hear the Word of God preached to our ears. However, the words spoken will not profit us if we do not believe them because if we do not believe them, we will not act on them. This is what Jesus is saying to the Jews- He is saying that "if you don’t believe that Moses was writing to you that you not only needed a savior but that one would be sent to you, then how will you believe Me {Jesus} when I say that I am the Messiah that Moses told you about? "{Of course that is written from Jesus’ perspective nominee as the author}.
For us today, we can examine the truth of our own hearts by holding our actions up to the word of God. Does our heart match our action? Incidentally, many times in the body of Christ, a believer will attend a church or a meeting with a particular pastor and that Christian will feel uneasy when listening too the pastor speak, They may not be able to put their finger on it but generally what is happening is that the Spirit of God, the Word of God that is inside the Christian is discerning that the thoughts and the intents of the heart of the pastor are not in line. We can apply this to ourselves as well if we are bold enough to be honest with ourselves. If we are, then what we do is take a hard look at the words we speak, especially those words we speak to others… if what we are saying does not match up with what we really believe in our hearts, then we are liars and agreeing with the devil. To take it one step further, if what we are saying to ourselves and to others neither matches what we truly believe in our hearts and does not match what the Word of God says, then we are in unbelief and again are liars agreeing with the devil!!
I realize these are bold statements and may be offensive, but Jesus was always bold and sometimes offensive for the sake of the souls of those who would hear Him!
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