Believer....

I love how words I've heard all my life become new (again) and fresh.

We have words such as believe(r), born again, saved, faith, saints, sanctified, justified, baptized, grace, redemption and resurrection are just a few.

Today...I've been looking at the word BELIEVER.  When I say believer I mean this:  the Scriptures make a difference between one who believes in Jesus Christ and one who doesn't (unbeliever).  Over the summer someone in New York told me about a friend of theirs who was a believer but was not saved.  Friends, that's impossible.  The two are irrevocably intertwined.  You can't be a believer without being saved and you can't be saved without believing.

The word Christian is used only 3 times in Scripture, and of course only in the New Testament.  Believer is used 10 times and ONLY in the New Testament.  These words describe those who through faith has been saved by His grace.

Go to biblegateway.com and type in the words Jesus and believe.  Those two words together are in the New Testament 43 times.  (In the New American Standard Version, which I primarily use.)

So what do we believe that makes us believers?

* "I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."

* "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved."

* "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

* "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God."

* 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that He was buried, and He was raised on the third day according to Scriptures.

Friends, when I believed on the Lord Jesus something fundamentally happened to me.  A change took place- maybe I should say began taking place.  Something really did start changing inside of me.  Like a shifting.  A replacing, if you will.  I believed...truly believed and He began to change the way I thought, the way I understood, the way I acted and reacted.  Some many things.

Believing was more to me than words I said.  I hear people say all the time they "believe" but do they?  1) Have they believed Who He really is?  2) Have they believed in what He has said?

There was a big distance of time when I began to understand that He is more than Savior of my sins- and yes that would be enough but He is so much more.  I believed He is the Son of God, and on His name I would be saved, that through believing His death on the cross, the shedding of His dear blood- and being raised to LIFE again I was saved from hell and from my sins.

What I did not understand, comprehend- KNOW- is that He did so much more.  That He took me to the cross with Him.  I participated in His death.  He not only died for my sins but He put to death the origin of MY SIN- my sinful inner man.  I DID NOT KNOW THIS.  NOBODY told me this for a long time.  Only that He saved me from my sins.  When I address the word 'saved' I will go more into this from Romans 6.  For now....

Let's take a look at the words believe and believers:

Strong's Greek

4100- pisteuo (verb); (a verb, shows action or a state of being) to believe, entrust
Pisteuo is derived from the Greek word pistis.  Pistis 4102 is Faith.  Incidentally, the word pistis (faith) is derived from the Greek word peitho.  Peitho 3982 is persuade, be persuaded.

So believe comes from the word faith and faith comes from the word persuade.  HELPS WORD STUDY describes the word faith as 'God's inbirthed divine persuasion'.  That completely agrees with all that I have read from Scripture about faith.  Faith is always received from God, never generated by us.  I will go into this more when I get to the word faith here on this blog in a few weeks.

4103- pistos (adjective); believer- (an adjective, describes a noun) faithful, trustworthy, believing, reliable
HELPS: believing the faith (God's inbirthed divine persuasion) God imparts

As believers we have believed (fully persuaded by God's divine inbirthed persuasion) the good news of Jesus Christ.  As we grow in our intimacy with Christ He anoints us with His truth as He deems us ready to hear His truths.  Our faith increases because we trust Who He really is and what He has ALREADY accomplished for us,to us, in us and will through us.  It's a lifelong good news.  It's a growing and increasing good news.  Being saved from our sins is just the tip of the iceberg.  He wants us to know and believe the 'whole message' of this Life (Acts 5:20).  

Do you believe?  Are you a believer?