You’ll Behave Like You Believe.

You Will Behave Like You Believe

“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭10:10‬

When you believe on Jesus Christ, you will behave with a spirit of love, meekness, kindness, long suffering and forgiveness. 

Once you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, once you place your faith and trust in Him and turn your life over to Him, the Holy Spirit is in you. 

“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:9‬

What happens before this?  

Well before turning your life to Christ, well, you’re on your own. You will behave, like “you” behave. It may go well and it may go bad. You may experience a life full of the things “you” want with no hiccups, no trips, no falls. Or, you might have a horrible life. It might be filled with disappointment, frustration and heartache. Or, it might be a mixture of both. Or it may be completely uneventful. 

One thing all of those lives without Christ will have is this - an eternity in hell. No Heaven. No Jesus. No eternal soul with God.  You will have uncertainty. You will have temporary solutions to temporary problems with an everlasting outcome. 

You will continue to behave in the manner you believe.  And yeah, I’ve taken the long way to get to my point. I spent almost fifty years away from God. I believed in Him, but I didn’t believe on Him. 

The difference? They way I behaved. 

I wasn’t behaving righteously. I wasn’t being Holy. I wasn’t living in the Will of God. I wasn’t reading my Bible. I wasn’t praying. I wasn’t constantly in thought about the salvation of others. I wasn’t acting right. I wasn’t bringing glory to God through my behavior. I wasn’t pursuing Him. 

I behaved like a man without a relationship with God. 

I drank. I cursed. I pursued my own desires and lusts. I disregarded the feelings and thoughts of others. I was hurtful. I was deceitful. I was arrogant. I was mean-spirited and ugly. 

Sure, you can live a life without any significant problems and be completely content - or so you will think. 

None of the things I did for myself prior to my salvation changed my behavior. Only the change in my belief changed my behavior. 

What I was doing, wasn’t working. It was a miserable existence. I was trying to fix and solve and change everything. And I wasn’t able to do it on my own.  I didn’t believe on anything. 

God tried to show me over the course of four decades but I refused to listen, until He made it very clear - I was the problem. 

I needed His help. I needed to let go of the world and what I wanted and turn to Him. It isn’t an immediate fix and it isn’t a band-aid either. 

What it is, is a permanent solution to temporary problems that we believe will last a lifetime.  The solution is eternal salvation from belief on Jesus Christ through His mercy and grace. 

My behavior changed because my belief changed. I am not living for the world any more. And this is a process of separation that doesn’t come all at once. It takes sacrifice of your own desires, wants, lusts and needs. This process takes time. I still slip, I still fall and I still stumble along the way - but the way I behave now is different and what I do is different. 

I rely on God to help me daily, because I turn to Him daily. The things I used to turn to, I now turn to Him. This takes obedience and sacrifice, discipline and desire. I pursue a relationship with God because I believe in what He is doing through me. My behavior changed because my belief changed. 

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2:12-13‬

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4:4-6‬