Believe It Or Not: That Is The Christian

By Michelle L. Joseph

God said, "Write the vision and make it plain," and my vision is to see Christians awaken to the truth of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God. Have you ever wondered, will all believers be the ones to hear the trumpets sound, see the dead rise, and see the Son of Man riding on a cloud? Or will their invitation read "Return to sender, addressees unknown"? Believe It or Not... That Is the Christian delves into the heart of the church and the life of the believers who profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Christianity in the church today has been met with secular chaos and hectic spirituality to the point that the church is not moving toward heaven but traveling the wide road to hell with the rest of the unbelieving world.

Meanwhile, the angels of heaven are setting the table for God's kingdom feast. The fruits of His labor are riping every day, the fattened calves are almost ready for slaughter, and Jesus is preparing for His triumphant entry back into this world. But instead of patient Christians waiting with expectation and anticipation sitting in the front rows of the church, worldly belief has taken up all the pews and left godly wisdom, spiritual understanding, Holy Ghost power, and Bible knowledge in the back of the church with standing room only. There is a need for all Christians to stand in truth and be unashamed to proclaim the gospel. The world is becoming more intolerant of secularity and less tolerant of the way of Christ. God is speaking to the church, and it is time we listen. Jesus is coming soon. His signs and wonders are becoming our everyday truths, but it is up to us Christians whether to believe it or not!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639615667

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Believe It Or Not

That Is The Christian

Michelle L. Joseph

ISBN 978-1-63961-565-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63961-566-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Michelle L. Joseph

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

All biblical citations were taken from the New International Version of the Holy Bible unless otherwise indicated.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Believing… What's It All About?

Believe What You Free-Will

Believe It or Not

Based on Belief

A True Believer

Believing from the Heart

Believing There Is a God

Believing God Is Good

Believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior

Jesus Made a Believer Out of Me

The Spirit of Belief

Bible-Believing Truth

A Love You Can Believe In

Believe Me, I Forgive You

Church-Believing Folks

God Still Believes in Marriage

Deceiving Believing

Heaven or Hell: Believe Me, It Is Your Choice

Appendix

Believers 101

What Do You Believe?

About the Author

This labor of love is dedicated to all believers desiring to have a true relationship with God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Acknowledgments

First, I would like to thank God, the Creator of all things. For the life of me, I cannot understand how anyone can say, I don't believe in God. To them, I ask, How could you not? In what way do you explain life, creation, and the world? Try as you might, you cannot explain the sky, sun, moon, and stars and how they came into being nor can science explain it. If there is no God, then who? A higher being, what is that about? I have always known that there is a God, but I never truly understood Him from a relational point of view. Now I do because I have an awesome relationship with Him, and I love Him so much. Father, to You be the glory forever and ever.

Then I would like to thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, for what He did on the cross. With the shedding of His blood, my life is more abundantly filled with love, family, friends, and the Holy Trinity than I would have ever known without Him. For it is in Him that I live, move, and have my being; and without Him, I am not.

Next, I would like to thank the Holy Spirit for all the words written and spoken to me that allowed me the ability to write this book and others. When someone says to me, I don't believe because the Bible and all these Christian books are the thought of man, I can say, Yes, they are with the help of the spirit of God as the author and finisher, because He has been with me in every word, line, sentence, paragraph, and prayer.

I would also like to thank my family and friends who have always believed in me and my dreams to become a writer; I love all of you more and more each day. Thank you to my daughters—Jasmine, Jamie, and Janaya—as well as my grands for the love, support, and understanding even when you didn't understand my choices. Thanks also for letting me use your computers, homes, and electricity until all hours of the night to do God's work. You guys are my joy. I love you all more than words can express.

Thank you to Shirley Arrington, Benita Jones, Carrie Blue, Amanda Horn, and Robin Jones for listening to me babble about my ideas. You guys have believed in me for a long time, and I am truly grateful for that. Thank you also to my family far and wide. I did this for you so that if you don't know God by now, you will read this and believe. I love you all, and may God bless you all in your endeavors to fulfill His desires for you and for His kingdom.

Introduction

For what if some do not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? By no means! Let God be true though everyone were a liar.

—Romans 3:3–4 (NKJV)

How long have you been a Christian, two years, ten years, twenty-five, forty, or more? Do you believe you know God? Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe you are living in the will of God for your life? Do you believe you are living according to the word of God? Do you believe you accept and love others with all their faults, circumstances, and issues? Do you believe you are a servant of God in helping others with no expectations? Or are you standing still in Christ, professing Christianity, but nothing in your life exemplifies anything about being a Christian other than your own self-prophecy, I am a Christian?

You see, being a Christian is grounded in what you believe. I know this because I was an unbelieving Christian. I was in church on Sundays, at Bible study on Wednesdays, and at many a church function throughout the years, but I didn't believe much of what I heard about God. Well, it's not that I didn't believe, but I didn't know what to believe; therefore, I could not live the life of a Christian because my life was not reflective of one. This is what is happening in the church today. Many are playing Christian. We play the role well, yet we are very lost in Christ.

One day I was writing a chapter called Based on Belief for a book that I was writing, and I felt something steering in my spirit. Not yet sure what direction I was going in with the chapter, words simply began to flow pertaining to believing. A few days later while deep in thought, I heard the title, Believe It or Not… That Is the Christian. I thought, What is that about? After a couple of weeks, this title kept coming up in my spirit. I believed that God was telling me to write concerning the belief of a Christian.

It took me a while to get the understanding for the title. Was I to write about what it takes to be a Christian, the goodness of being a Christian, or the life of a being Christian? I wasn't sure at the time, but I soon found out exactly what God wanted. I was to write about the unbelieving Christian Christians (believers who have their own opinion and beliefs about God and Christianity with little or no biblical truth). I sat in my chair in front of the computer for hours trying to wrap my head around this. I thought, Wow, really, me? That's what You want me to write about? Who am I to write about this? I am that Christian? After asking God if He was sure that was what He wanted from me about a hundred times, I settled into believing Him.

See, God knows me, and He knew my journey as I was trying to know Him. He knew all the questions I had asked and all the steps I had taken to find out the truth. He knew that like me there are many who are at that same crossroad trying to find Him. He chose me because I understand their struggle. He chose me because I trusted Him and in His will being done in my life. So I finished that chapter and began writing the book you have before you, Believe It or Not… That Is the Christian.

Do you know why there are so many Christians living like they don't know God? It's because Christians don't believe in God. They don't believe that He is the God of all creation, that He loves them, that His word is truth, that He can and will keep his promises, or that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. Why do I say this? Because Satan, science, and evolution have all blinded us to the ways of God. Satan has deceived the world and the church included to living his life and turning completely away from God. I see it in churches everywhere. Our attendance is low. We speak negatively to and about our church family. We don't want to help or serve others. We don't tithe with our time, talent, or treasure. We don't want to pray, worship, or praise. It all shows when we don't reverence God in the glory and with the honor that He truly deserves. These are the harsh realities of God's people worldwide. Jesus said, These people (Christians) make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn't in it. They act like they're worshiping me, but they don't mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suites their fancy (Matthew 15:8–9 MSG; emphasis mine). You may know this scripture as They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And I believe God is growing tired of it.

If we genuinely believed what we claim as Christians, we would see more goodness, kindness, and caring in the world because the love of God would overwhelm wickedness and evil. Christ's love would be reflected in the faces of all Christians. They would be the salt of the earth and the light of Christ in the world, and there would be more Christians than there are churches to hold them. As it stands today, we are living the opposite of this in a hectic and chaotic world filled with lowly and downtrodden Christians with way more churches than church folk.

We also don't believe that this one man, Jesus Christ, died for all mankind to have eternal life. We think, Yeah right, who does that? So because we can't imagine it, we can't believe it. Well, guess what, God called us to believe it, not imagine it, reason it, or analyze it. We are simply to believe Him, period. That's all, end of discussion, but it's the hardest thing in the world for us to do. Believing is a heart-and-mind condition where the two bring forth truth, understanding, and belief to life in us.

Do you remember the story of the Israelites, the first ones chosen by God to be His people? God bought them out of bondage into freedom, saved them from Pharaoh, kept them through the wilderness years, fed them, clothed them, and provided everything they needed for forty-plus years before bringing them to the promised land. He was with them every step of the way, but here is the kicker. Out of some six thousand people or more, only two of the original made it. Why? The rest did not believe God. Well, I'm here to tell you we are just like them, only worse, and like God eventually grew tired of them and sent them into exile after some three hundred fifty years of disbelief. I believe He is growing even more tired with us, the church, His chosen people. Unlike the Israelites, we have His word of truth. He sent His Son Jesus Christ as an example for us to follow, and He put the truth of what we should believe in us by His Holy Spirit. So what do we do? Do we continue to be unbelieving Christian Christians, or do we begin to become truth-believing Christians?

As I was doing some research for this book, I found out quite a bit about the origins of belief in mankind and the ways in which we believe. I found some things very fascinating, and I hope you will too as you read this book, and as you come to the end, I hope you can make the same declaration. Belief all boils down to this: you are going to believe in something or fall for anything, and that's the truth. The choice is yours. God wants you to be a believer. He wants you to believe in Him, but He's not going to force you into it. You can choose to believe everything about Him or nothing at all. You can choose to believe the truth of His word or don't read the Word at all. You can choose to believe in His Son Jesus Christ and accept Him as your Lord and Savior or reject Him and follow Satan on the road to destruction; it's all about what you choose to believe. I know I'm reeling this around, but I want you to understand that believing is all about you, your mind, your thoughts, your knowledge, and your ability to make sense of it all; but remember, it's your belief that causes life or death, so believe wisely.

Trust me, I know where you are right now in the midst of your journey. I sat in churches for many years expecting a light to come on or lightning to strike me with a badge of Christendom or something. I believed in God, but I didn't know anything about Him. I knew He had a Son, but His life meant nothing to me. I believed He was this scary God who killed people for not doing what He wanted them to do, but inside I knew there was something much more to it. After I had enough and really reached out to God, He picked me up and turned me around in the direction to find the real Him. I love the changes that have taken place in my life. I am no longer among the unbelieving Christian Christians, but I am a truth-believing Christian with a sold-out heart for God. I am still on this journey, but I know that in the end, victory is mine, and it can be yours too. Just trust Him and follow Him.

I pray that as you read this book, you will get a word of truth lining up with the spiritual truth that lives in you. I pray that you will turn from ungodly ways and turn to God's ways. I pray that you will experience the power of the Holy Spirit changing your heart and mind. I pray that you will no longer be an unbelieving Christian but a truth-believing Christian.

So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God rest upon you. But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by His name. (1 Peter 4:14, 4:16 NLT)

Note: At the end of the book is a test on what you believe. I would like for you to answer the questions before you read the book and again after you have finished the book. This is for you to see if your beliefs have changed from what you first believed.

Believing… What's It All About?

What is believing all about? For centuries, this has been a question in the mind of a Christian. But why? What is so hard about believing? Well, let me rephrase that. What is so hard about believing in God? Because most of us believe everything else under the sun, but Christianity is probably the most difficult of all. God entrusts us to believe His truth, hence the name believers. So why don't we believe that? We don't believe it because Satan, science, evolution, man, and disbelief have clouded our minds to the things of God.

I once read that believing in evolution is trusting in science and that believing in creation is trusting in (having faith in) God, with each of these looking at mankind and creation from its own perspective. Hmm, from our own perspective (what we believe about a thing), how utterly profound is that? So the question about our existence then becomes, What do I believe about mankind and its origin? Believing in evolution means you trust that mankind derived from apes or a type of nomadic mammal, whereas believing in God means you believe that God created us in His own image. Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us' (Genesis 1:26 NLT).

Believing in science is not a bad thing. Science can be defined as man's instinctive desire to know how the things of life work, how mankind lives life, how the universe works, how plants and trees grow, how the human brain works and thinks, and so on. Science can answer the how of all these questions, but it cannot answer the whys of life. Only God can answer that. Believing is a major part of who we are, what we do, and what we will become in life, a truth you will come to understand later in this book. Our daily behavior, either good or bad, is carried out based on what we believe. Remember, believing starts in your mind. That belief is then retained in your heart and then manifested in your actions. Believing is an action of the will I can choose to believe or not to believe.

There are some things in life we will never understand, but we must learn to live with them. Not only do we learn to live with it, but we must also accept it. For example, we don't understand how we get from one day to the next day every three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, yet we live believing that it will continue this way until we die or Jesus returns, right? How do you know this will happen? You don't, but you believe it and accept it.

Have you ever asked yourself, As a Christian, what exactly am I supposed to believe? Believing is how we live; everything we do in life is based on what we believe is true about a person, a place, or a thing. When you go to work, you believe you can do your job. In school, you believe you are learning what is needed to build your career. When driving, you believe you are going in the right direction to get to your destination. When sleeping, you believe you will wake up. When you go out to dinner, you believe the person cooking your food is trustworthy, and when you go shopping you believe you have the money to buy the things you want, or maybe that's hope, like I hope I have the money for this. Again, I say, Everything you do in life is based on what you believe and why you believe it.

I heard someone say, Believing is what you make it. It's whatever you choose to believe. If you believe that one plus one is two, then that's what it is for you, but it may not be two for someone else. Just because that's what you believe doesn't make you right and them wrong. That is so true. Believing is based on what you choose it to be. You have the right to believe anything you want or believe nothing at all. People say, Believe something or fall for anything. But what if you simply choose to believe nothing. Does that make everything untrue? No, it is just an untruth for you. It doesn't mean that it is not real, not a fact, or not true for someone else. You have just chosen not to subject your own mind to the possibility of the factual truth in it.

Christians are called believers. Why? What is it that we are actually supposed to believe that makes us Christian? We are told that we are to believe in God, Jesus as the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit as the spirit of God left here to guide us in this life on earth, but we are not taught to believe it or taught why we should believe it. The fact that we are called believers is not the focal point of the teachings in the church today, and because of this, we are not learning the truth about becoming a truth-believing Christian. A doctor is a medical student for years before he is a doctor in his field of profession, but Christian diplomas are handed out daily. We should learn to believe what we believe about God, but if it's not being taught, how do we learn?

The Bible is very clear in that it says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6 KJV). Believing is having knowledge about something, but if you're not being taught what to believe, how do you begin to gain the knowledge of knowing God's truth? Learning the word of God helps you to acknowledge it, receive it, and live it. In that same verse, God said that we lack knowledge because we have rejected knowledge. That means that we do not learn what we should believe about God because we reject the teaching knowledge of Him. Learning is receiving knowledge. We receive that knowledge by reading, seeing, hearing, and listening; but if we reject learning, we will fail knowing God or believing anything about Him.

Jesus commissioned the disciples to go and spread the good news to the world (Matthew 28:19). They walked with Jesus for three years and didn't understand what the good news was until the Holy Spirit came upon them. He taught them and gave them a complete understanding of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God: But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative, that is, the Holy Spirit, He will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you (John 14:26 NLT). The knowledge received from the Holy Spirit allowed them to be able to explain the good news to the people around them. After making the decision to be saved, learning what to believe, and why you should believe it, should be the next step in understanding your salvation.

There is something else we need to understand about believing. There are ways in which we believe. A few ways of believing are literal, objective, and optimistic. These are just to name a few.

The word literal has several ways of belief. They are to follow exactly as written (literal translation), in a basic or strict sense (literal meaning), restricted to the facts (literal truth), or commonplace, dull, or a mater-of-fact sense of something (literal mind). I have experienced all these ways of believing at some time or another depending on the situation. The word objective means independent of the mind, real, existing as an object or fact. The word optimistic means the belief that good ultimately prevails over evil; the tendency to take the most hopeful view of matters. So you see, you could have diverse ways of believing at different times depending on life matters, consequences, or circumstances confronting you at that time.

Have you ever been asked the question, Do you see the glass half empty or half full? I believe it is half full because that's the way I see