“BELIEVING IN THE BIBLICAL JESUS”

17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”

Matthew 19:17

Christianity is on the rise, especially in Asia and Africa. And I'm not surprised, knowing that God continues to draw people closer to Him. But amid the evangelization happening around the world, some don't quite understand what it means to believe in Jesus.

In today’s verse, Jesus’ statement indicates that life in God’s kingdom is given only to one who demonstrates righteousness. At this point, the official standard of righteousness was the Law of Moses, causing Jesus to tell the man to obey the commandments (“entola,” “an order, command, that which is prescribed to one because of his office”). The context refers to the commandments in God’s Moral Law. In other words, the Ten Commandments were the basis of one's righteousness. The man thinks that he has done enough good to enter the Kingdom of God.

People of today are not very different from this man. We think that by doing enough good, we can earn our way into heaven. We assume that as long as we’re not as bad as others, or as long as we do more good than evil, then God should approve of us. We think of ourselves as good because others are more evil than us. But we can only see our good because we try to contrast our “excellencies” with others’ evil. What if we try to compare our “goodness” with that of Jesus?

The first sign of knowing we’re a Christian is our understanding of who Jesus is. We have to exercise saving faith in Him. We should entrust our eternity to the Jesus of the Bible, not some imaginary savior. We should recognize that He is the Son of God and believe that He is God because He possesses the very characteristics of God. Not only is Jesus God, but He is also a man. The fact that He is speaking face-to-face to a man in this passage is proof of His humanity. His thirty-three years of life on earth are hard to disprove. Even the most passionate atheists cannot deny the evidence of Christ’s historicity.

Part of believing in Jesus is being convinced of His goodness. Believe that He is good. Trust that there is no evil in Him. Rely on the fact that everything He does is good, and He forgives sinners. Believe that He lived a perfect life, died on the Cross, and rose on the third day.

In a nutshell, you should have confidence in what the Bible says about Him. John sums up what we need to believe in one verse.

15 “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

1 John 4:15

Do you believe in the biblical Jesus? 

Pursue the Savior today!

Photo by Marco Biasibetti on Unsplash