Glad Tidings of Great Joy

For God So Loved…

A man returning from Europe invited several of his friends to his home to view a piece that he’d purchased while away. Rumors had spread quickly among them concerning what this might be. Anxiously they gathered around him to watch as he proudly hung a framed portrait in a prominent location on the wall. The friends, with puzzled looks, viewed his treasure with curiosity, but struggled to find the right words to express their thoughts. Perhaps this was just a joke? The picture was very plain, a black and white image of a young girl holding a small bouquet of flowers. In fact, it appeared to be a simple commercial reproduction of some sort.

Shaking his head the man pulled down the picture and tore the portrait from the frame. Then he restored the frame to its prior position. “Now what do you see?” he asked. For the first time, each person gazed at the magnificent, hand-crafted frame which had held the black and white print, and upon recognizing its rare beauty, each gladly shared their appreciation of the fine piece that he had found.

It’s strangely odd how we, having heard people talk and speculate about a book or a portrait, can form lasting opinions about these items without ever having seen them. Moreover, even when we do view them, these impressions can often lead us to miss what the author or artist had originally intended. But more than just art, people’s words color and influence everything we see.

I recall how, as a child, we were often told to line up, to play “Follow the Leader”. How boring! I was never a defiant child (at least I don’t think I was), but I saw nothing fun, or of value in simply following the leader. And yet, if you look around and watch the world of people today, this is perhaps the biggest game going. “What’s Trending?” is the bait on the internet, on television, at the movies, on the radio, at the bookstore, and just about anyplace else you might turn. As a result, people and organizations are helping us to form ideas, thoughts, our very beliefs, without our even realizing it. Consequently, as we look around us, we might begin to see the world and life itself as a simple black and white portrait – something of little value – even as we wonder what the joke is.

However life is not a joke. Each of us is the precious child of an amazing Creator-God who desires to love us and to be our Father. But, therein lies the rub, for while everyone wants to hear about God’s love, many want to reject the idea that He created us, and to deny that He (as God) has determined right from wrong and has established the morale laws by which He governs this world. Furthermore, they want to ignore the fact that He judges us by His own perfection, and that none of us merit anything but His wrath because, in one way or another, we have all denied His deity, His authority, and His supremacy over us (that is, we have all sinned). From birth, sin has clouded our minds while the words of men have pointed us in the direction of self-serving pleasures; and yet God has prepared and given to us a marvelous gift – a most precious work of art – the Good News of His enduring love as demonstrated in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!

The greatest proclamation of God’s good news to this troubled world was succinctly and powerfully expressed by the Apostle John in his beloved statement: “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) Paul likewise explains, in his letter to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Through these verses, John and Paul tell us that God the Father loved the world (meaning each of us) so much, that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus – that He should die, so that we could share in His promise – that everyone who believes in Him (Jesus) should not perish, but have life everlasting with Him, in heaven. Moreover, this is a gift from God, a gift which we do not deserve and which we cannot earn, nor can we even add to it. Rather, we can only receive this gift from Him through faith.

Here are two powerful statements, beautiful statements of promise and love, and yet they can leave us with worrisome questions. Questions like: “What does it mean to believe? How can we have faith? And how is faith different from belief, or is it? And even more, what does it mean to be saved?”

Belief and Faith are words so intimately connected that we may think that they are one and the same, but they are not. And yet, seeing that these words are used in God’s most amazing expressions of good news and love, it seems only appropriate that we look into the meaning and purpose behinds these words so that with increased understanding, we might more fully embrace God’s gift, and celebrate in His promise of Salvation! Therefore, we will dedicate two lessons to the task of exploring the wonder, meaning, and purpose behind these words: to believe and to have faith. We will begin first by examining the definitions of each of these words to understand what they mean and how they are related, and then we will move on to study vivid examples of each whereby we will see the power and purpose of each word in action. We will address what it means to believe in this lesson; then we will address what it means to have and live by faith when we get to Lesson 2.