"Believe in God, Believe Also in me"

“You must not let yourselves be distressed — you must hold on to your faith in God and to your faith in me.” John 14:1

With these words, we stand upon the threshold of the Last Discourse, including Jesus’ wonderful prayers that follow after, and, in these words, we’re given the key that allows us to go in, to cross the threshold, and to walk around in the glories of the Kingdom: “you must hold on to your faith in God and to your faith in me”; in the Greek – “believe in God, believe also in me.” 

Over those next twenty-four hours, the disciples will see Jesus arrested, put on trial, brutalized, condemned to death, and then crucified between two thieves: “believe in God, believe also in me,” He says. Forty-eight hours later, Mary Magdalene will tumble into the upper room, Peter and John will go to investigate her report of an empty tomb: “believe in God, believe also in me.” Forty days later, the Eleven will watch Him ascend into Heaven and now hold, in their hearts and minds, the entirety of the earthly ministry of the Gospel of Jesus: “believe in God, believe also in me.” Today, sitting wherever you are sitting, you are a present chosen apostle whose task is nothing less and nothing more than the first Apostles – “Tell everyone”; “believe in God, believe also in me.”

Belief is trust; Belief is a foundational confidence; Belief is believing that all of it is true, that He’s alive, that the unseen realities of His Kingdom far outweigh all the “seen things” going on around you. Belief is waking up in the morning, as one indwelt by the One, and following His Way, with childlike joy, all day. Belief is everything. Belief aligns us with the eternal, the infinite.

 As we consider these simple, opening words of the Last Discourse: Do you believe?