To Believe Means to Obey

One of the greatest deceptions I fell victim to before I met the Lord for real, was believing that I had a genuine, intimate relationship with Him when I did not. 

This is because I thought belief was a matter of the mind, rather than one of the heart. 

I knew a great deal about Jesus, but I did not have a personal, experiential knowledge of Him.

To put saving faith in Jesus is not an intellectual exercise. It is not simply mental assent. 

It cannot be because the mind is part of the soul. True worshippers of God must worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). 

Neither is saving faith obtained by simply making a verbal statement with your mouth, i.e., reciting “the Sinner’s Prayer”.

Belief is a matter principally of the spiritual heart. The evidence of having a true saving faith will manifest in the complete transformation of how you think, what you say, and how you behave as you are purified and sanctified by the Spirit of God over time.

You may state that Jesus is your Lord with your mouth. That is a good thing. 

However, if you are living your life unto and for yourself, you are not speaking the truth. If you are walking in the flesh, you are only deceiving yourself. God cannot be fooled.

Romans 10:9 states, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”.

To confess does not simply mean to speak. It implies surrender to Jesus’s lordship through obedience.

It means to concede, to promise, to declare, and to profess. 

When one confesses that Jesus is Lord, it means that you are agreeing with God, or giving assent to the reality that He is your master and you are His servant. 

By this public declaration, you are announcing that you are a disciple of Jesus…one who is learning from Him to become exactly like Him. 

1 John 2:3-6 reads, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked”.

Jesus made a very clear distinction between saying with our mouths and doing with our lives.

The first example I’ll point out is in the gospel of Luke:

Luke 13:22-30 ​​He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Notice, the people shut out of Christ’s kingdom call him “Lord” with their mouths. But, when He responds to them, He addresses them as “workers of evil”. This is in spite of their being in close proximity to Him.

Here is the same rejection being described in the gospel of Matthew:

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

In this telling, you can also see that the people being rejected called Jesus their “Lord” with their mouths. But they are turned away because they did not know the Lord, and were “workers of lawlessness”. This is in spite of them having performed miracles in Jesus’s name! 

Jesus emphatically states, only those who DO the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Statements alone do not qualify us for entry.

Here is yet another example of Jesus making a distinction between saying with our mouths that we will do God’s will and actually following through with our actions.

Matthew 21:28-32 “What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’  And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.

Only the son who actually followed through with the command of the Father did His will. The son who gave an affirmative statement but did not actually do what the Father asked of him did not do the Father’s will.

Now, I am going to show you clearly in scripture that belief in God means to obey God. 

You will also see that there will be people who are professing to be Christians who will NOT enter the Kingdom of God because they practiced disobedience. These people have been deceived due to continued sin in their lives.

First, let’s go to Hebrews.

Hebrews 3:12-19 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?  And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

First, note that the letter of Hebrews is written to believers. That is why the author addresses the recipients of this letter as “brothers”. 

It is not written to the unbelieving world, but to believers.

And they are being warned about the risk of falling away from God! 

Now, why would “brothers” be warned against something that’s not possible?

The text clearly states that an unbelieving heart will lead believers to FALL AWAY. 

The command to exhort each other every single day is to PREVENT followers of Christ from developing hardened hearts and becoming deceived by their own sin.

Our hearts become hardened when we ignore the Spirit’s conviction. Hardened hearts make us prime candidates for self-deception.

Has God placed something on your heart that you’ve chosen to ignore?

Perhaps you were once disturbed by how you treated someone or how you spoke to someone, but you never addressed it. 

Maybe you assassinated someone's character or gossipped behind their back and never owned up to the damage you caused. 

Have you lied to protect your own reputation?

Have you refused to forgive someone because you believe they really don’t deserve it?

Do you know in your heart that these attitudes and actions are wrong but you’ve decided because of your own pride not to repent and make things right?

Beware! That’s exactly the slippery slope many Christians will fall down on. 

Watch this. 

In verses 18 and 19, the author wrote, “and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.”

God swore that the disobedient would not enter his rest. They were unable to enter BECAUSE of unbelief.

This clearly defines two key words as equating to one another: disobedient = unbelief.

If disobedient = unbelief, then can we also state that obedience = belief?

Logically we can. Scripture proves this to be true as well.

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

So, our obedience to the Son proves that we actually believe Him. If we do not obey the Son, then we do not believe in Him, and we will not possess eternal life.

Still need convincing? 

Here is more biblical proof that obtaining eternal life is explicitly linked to obeying God’s commands.

James, the brother of Jesus, wrote in James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him”. 

The crown of life is promised to those who love God.

So, did Jesus provide a definition of what it means to love God?  

He did!

John 14:21 reads, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”

and

John 14:15 If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

and a third time:

1 John 5:2-3 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.

But wait, there’s more!

Jesus’s half brother James wrote that followers of Christ needed to be, “doers of the word, and not hearers only” in James 1:22. 

He went on to write in 2:14, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”

He puts to the reader the very distinction we are dealing with today. 

Is saying that you have faith in Jesus enough? Or must that claim be backed up with obedience?

The answer is given a few verses later in 17-19 “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

Now, this is wild (and incredibly confrontational)!

James wrote that demons believe in God! 

In fact, we can go one step further. Demons KNOW that God exists. 

This proves that an intellectual assent (knowing in your mind or with your intellect) is not what God means by believing in Him!

Again, demons believe in God…but what they don’t do is OBEY God.

James concluded that if you say that you have faith, but there are no “works” (consistent obedient actions) to prove it, then your faith is a dead one. 

Dead faith can’t save you, my friends. 

Saying Jesus is Lord with your words when you are not truly submitted to Him won’t save you either.

Only faith that results in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ does that.

To believe means to obey.

Please check to make sure your faith is genuine while you still have time.