Believing is a lot of work. Don’t agree. Just survey your life. Most if not all of us in Christ operate at a mere fraction of what is available to us.

So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?
Galatians 3:5 NIV

Is the power of God released into our lives through being good (following rules) or just by believing? Now if the power of God is released into our lives just by believing then believe me, we’ve got work to do.

The work is in believing. And we know from experience that believing is not automatic. It therefore must be a process. The real work in the kingdom of God is: believing. If you can become good at any one thing, make it believing.

Note to self: We don’t grow out of believing. We never get to a place where we no longer need to believe God. We believe in God for the long haul and we just get better at it – hopefully.

Here is a bit of a discussion Jesus once had.

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
John 6:27-29 NIV

The work of God for us is “believing.” There, Jesus said it. I didn’t make this up. The ultimate work is “believing” in Jesus as the Anointed One of God, the Christ. But that is only the beginning. The most important thing any of us can do is to believe. This may seem counterintuitive because believing may not seem like we are doing anything. But the act of believing is real work in God’s kingdom.

Work requires effort. If we are talking physics (no this is not a science lesson) work is when enough energy is applied to an object to cause movement. Isn’t that interesting? Without movement there is no work. Without energy or effort there is no work. Both are needed for things to get done in the kingdom of God. Both are the components of believing.

It may not seem that believing should take effort, but again just survey your life. It takes effort to believe. It takes effort to hold on. Matter of fact believing can be so difficult that Jesus has laid out a process to help us understand it.

The Process

Jesus gave us a very famous parable in Luke 8 about the sower and the seed. This parable helps us to understand the process of believing, so let’s look at it.

Here’s the Parable

While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
Luke 8:4-8 NIV

This is one of those important parables that the Lord really wants us to get. How do we know that? Because the Lord goes on to explain it, a few verses later; and He doesn’t always explain His parables.

“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
Luke 8:11-15 NIV

Okay, let’s break this down.

The seed is the word of God. That is pretty straightforward. There is no real spiritual progress, growth, or development without the word of God. There is no way to get around it. There is no substitute.

Now, we’re all familiar with seeds. A seed is something in its earliest stage of development. Seeds aren’t molded. They already are what they are. They are just not yet fully grown. Seeds carry with them both the instructions and potential to become a full grown version of themselves. We can do a lot of things with our technology but creating seeds is beyond our capability.

The soil is the heart of man. The seeds’ development is dependent on the soil. The seed doesn’t act alone but in harmony with the soil to become what was intended. Also we see that the intended outcome of this process is a crop. Think of the crop as the resulting thoughts, words and deeds that come out of us as His truth is established in our lives. Or you can think of the crop as his power expressed through us. Does that make sense?

Here’s the process

1. Effort

The seed on the path that the birds eat up is when the enemy snatches the word from us.

This is where we don’t even try to believe. We apply no effort into believing. I also call this a summary judgment. A summary judgment is a legal term when you convince the judge that the case has no merit and shouldn’t even be considered. It’s like we hear something and it doesn’t register at all. We don’t even want to consider it. We immediately disregard it. We don’t even try.

Non-believers hear that Jesus died for their sins and they don’t even want to consider it. It just doesn’t register. It doesn’t resonate. They immediately rule it out. But non-believers are not the only ones that struggle, so do Christians. There are things in the word that we immediately discard out of hand - even when it is clearly stated. There are things in the word of God that we have no energy to believe - that we are unwilling to expend an ounce of effort or energy. And that is a limiting factor of our growth and what he can do through our lives.

So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?
Galatians 3:5 NIV

Catch yourself with the Lord’s help. There are things in the word that the Lord wants to release to you, that he really wants you to believe and it doesn’t resonate at all with you now. The grace that you need is available to you. Ask for the Lord’s help to see what you need to see in this season of your life and for the energy to begin to believe.

2. Endurance

Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.

For many, this is where the rubber meets the road. Many of us who overcome the first step struggle right here. We last for a while but we lack endurance. With a little adversity we give up. Adversity simply means there is opposition to the truth. Adversity is when your reality seems very different than the truth you believe.

I’ve heard people say to me during a Bible study something like this: “Sure I understand what you are saying, but the problems I’m facing are reality. I’d like to believe you, I really would, but the word of God does not agree with my experience. It just doesn’t work in my life. I’ve got to do what works for me. I can pretend that I’m this way in church, but this doesn’t work in the real world.”

That is a good definition of adversity.

Remember that believing is work and work requires both energy and movement. Adversity can be thought of then as the lack of movement. We are believing but we don’t see anything happening. What are we lacking? In this case not effort but endurance.

At this point I guess you are looking for a few magic beans from me. There must be someway to shortcut adversity and eliminate the difficulty. The only thing I can do is to remind you and myself that believing is a process, that there is an end to this step. Paul put it this way:

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Romans 5:3-5 NIV

Adversity produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and character produces a lasting hope in God of which we will not be disappointed. Movement will come. Do not give up. Do not stop believing. Remind yourself that this is a process and that the Lord wants you to stand firm.

Some of you are operating at the breaking point right now. You are just about to give up. If you can only hold on, you will see that you are not really at the breaking point but at the point of movement. The Lord desires that you be all in.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:6-8 NIV

Make every effort Peter says.

3. Focus

The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.

A little recap here. The work of God is believing and work is applying enough energy until there is movement. So watch this closely, I don’t want to lose you here. There can be times when it seems that we don’t have the energy to do the work of believing. We don't have an energy problem. We have a focus problem. When we have competing interests like worries, riches and pleasures our effort is misdirected. Does that make sense? Our cares can dissipate our energy and impede our progress in the kingdom of God.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Col 3:1-2 NIV

The word of God here is essentially asking us to focus our energy, not on competing interests (worries, riches and pleasures) but on the things of God. Yes, but is this possible? Absolutely. It is very important for you to understand that whenever God tells us what he wants (seed) there is the potential and the instructions to accomplish what he desires. He never tells us to do anything we can’t do. If it seems difficult, He expects us to ask for help. Always ask for help.

For some of us it seems like we’ve stopped trying but its not because we no longer believe. It is because after the energy we pour into our problems has been expended – there is little to nothing left to believe. There is barely enough to get started and definitely not enough for movement. We even pray for more and more energy when a lack of energy is not the problem. May the Lord open our eyes to what is really weighing us down and help us re-allocate the energy we already have.

4. Progress

But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

Spiritual progress is attainable. If it weren’t he wouldn’t have told us. It is not just theoretical or conceptual. He is committed to our progress. He is committed to our development. He is committed to our growth. That’s what the seeds are for.

He wants us to see this as a process. He wants us to sustain through the process and see spiritual growth. If we can sustain through the process it will build in us character for things to come and with that confidence as well.

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
Hebrews 10:35 NIV

Do the work of believing. He has already done all the hard work. He has already suffered the pain, the humiliation, the torture. He has already spilled his blood and died. He has already risen from the dead. He’s already done the hard work. All we have to do is to believe. That's easy compared to what he has done.

Just believe. Add a little effort, a little endurance, and a little focus.

So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?
Galatians 3:5 NIV

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