What It Means to Truly Believe

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” - John 3:16

It is quite a scary thought to think that on the Day of Judgement Jesus will say to many former Christians “I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23). These are professing believers who will even cry out “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” (Matthew 7:22). Yet He will still say “depart from Me, I never knew you”. How could this be? It clearly states in John 3:16 that those who believe would have everlasting life. Didn’t those standing before the Lord and given that devastating statement also believe? It may seem that these two portions of scripture are contradicting, however, there is a lot more meaning behind the word “believe” used in John 3:16 than what meets the eye.

If we look at the original Hebrew text of the bible, “believe” comes from the Hebrew word “emunah” and it translates to “firmness, steadfastness, and fidelity”, which is a person who is continuously loyal to someone. Therefore what John 3:16 is really saying is that when you believe in Jesus Christ, you are not just professing that He is the Son of God and now your Lord and Savior, you are actively making Him Lord over your life by choosing to devote your whole life to a relationship with Christ, which involves remaining steadfast in the faith and being continuously faithful to Him through the obedience of His ways. 

Let me illustrate further with the eunuch who got saved in Acts 8.  Philip came across a chariot carrying an eunuch from Ethiopia who was reading from the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit told Philip to go to the chariot and long story short, Philip ended up preaching the truth of Jesus Christ to this man and he got saved. Shortly after, in verses 36-37 it says, “...they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “...What hinders me from being baptized?” “Then Philip said, ‘“If you believe with all your heart, you may.”’ And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” When the eunuch believed with all his heart, it meant that he would be pouring out his entire being into this new relationship. This takes great devotion, investment and trust. 

When you are willing to give your whole heart to someone, it requires a special kind of trust. This kind of trust is built off of a personal relationship with that person and you can only have this kind of relationship if you intimately know them. When Jesus will say “depart from Me, I never knew you” to some of those who believed is because they didn’t intimately know Him and so that trust truly wasn’t there. They couldn’t intimately know Him because they lacked in the trust that comes with obedience to our Lord and His will, and instead they eventually gave into their own will. They may have called Jesus their Savior, but they forgot to make Him their Lord.

Just before Matthew 7:22-23, in verse 21 Jesus clearly says: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘“Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven”. In order to do the will of the Father, one must first know His will by knowing Him, which comes from diligently seeking Him. The task of doing the Father’s will is then completed by acting in obedience to His will, which requires trusting that His ways are better than our own. When you have this kind of trust, remaining faithful to our Lord becomes almost natural and instinctive.

In essence, when we accept Jesus into our lives and believe that He is the Son of God and is the only One who brings us salvation, we cannot just make Him our Savior and we can’t just call Him Lord, but we must also make Him Lord over our lives by laying down our own will and following the Father’s will. It is then that we can truly say that we believe that He is Lord over our lives. The kind of belief that is pointed out in John 3:16 is one that you cannot just declare with your mouth, but it is the kind of belief that you must actively and diligently carry out in your day-to-day life through obedience to our Lord.