{"id":5128,"date":"2025-12-24T08:39:59","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T13:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5128"},"modified":"2025-12-24T08:39:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T13:39:59","slug":"just-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/24\/just-believe\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Believe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder ways that we can ready ourselves to receive Jesus, once again, into our own hearts.<\/em>

If the notion that God became a human being is more than just an ancient yarn, what are we supposed to do with it?

What response is God seeking?\u00a0

John addresses that question simply and directly in the opening verses of his Gospel.\u00a0Plenty of people may dismiss Jesus out of hand, \u201cyet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God\u201d (John 1:12).\u00a0

What does it mean to believe<\/em>?

If you give yourself to Christ \u2013 not just by paying a bit more attention to him tomorrow because it happens to be Christmas, but by choosing to pursue him with everything you are and everything you\u2019ve got \u2013 your identity changes.\u00a0You become a member of God\u2019s own family.\u00a0Believing is not about getting all the right answers on the final exam of Theology 101<\/em>.\u00a0It\u2019s about entrusting yourself to him right here and right now, as best you can.

Period.<\/em>

Mere believing, however, is currently under assault by numerous well-meaning preachers and teachers.\u00a0

The 21st<\/sup> century has seen a surge of books that strongly imply that presenting ourselves to Jesus, as best we can, cannot possibly be enough.\u00a0We need to strengthen the verb \u201cbelieve\u201d with another word, a word that shows just how serious we really are.\u00a0

If you\u2019re having a momentary flashback to eighth grade English (which could well be a genuinely painful flashback), you\u2019ll recall that a word that modifies a verb is called an \u201cadverb.\u201d We\u2019re living in a time when the Bible\u2019s teaching that believing <\/em>is the one essential thing God asks of us is suffering what we might call \u201cdeath by adverbs.\u201d

According to some, we can\u2019t really <\/em>know God just by entrusting ourselves to him.\u00a0We must entrust ourselves sincerely or truly or faithfully or genuinely or fundamentally or boldly or wholeheartedly or radically or charismatically or unreservedly or some other word that ends in \u201c-ly.\u201d

The problem with this earnest teaching is that you can\u2019t find it in the Bible.\u00a0The verb \u201cbelieve\u201d never appears with such adverbs anywhere in Scripture.\u00a0As John puts it with unadorned simplicity in the text above, \u201cto those who believed<\/em> in his name\u2026\u201d

When it comes to being in relationship with him, God makes it easy. We are the ones who make it hard.<\/em>

Don\u2019t worry if your feelings are all over the place, and if you really don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing.\u00a0When it comes to surrendering to God, we rarely if ever know precisely what we\u2019re doing.\u00a0Jesus hears the cry of every heart, even if our theology, motives, and character are off the mark.\u00a0

As the late Brennan Manning used to say, \u201cWe can\u2019t wait to come to God until we are what we ought to be, for in this world we shall never be what we ought to be.\u201d

That means today \u2013 this<\/em> Christmas Eve \u2013 is the right moment to entrust yourself once again to the Lord.\u00a0 \u00a0

We can\u2019t afford to play the When \/ Then Game:

When things settle down, then I\u2019ll figure out what it means to believe.\u00a0When my spouse becomes more supportive, then I\u2019ll work on being a great partner.\u00a0When I get on a better footing financially, then I\u2019ll become a generous person.\u00a0When the holidays are finally over, then I\u2019ll find time for God.\u00a0

Amazing things happen when we finally decide that \u201cthen\u201d has become \u201cnow.\u201d

You already have everything you need.

Just believe.\u00a0<\/em>
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[375,119],"class_list":["post-5128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-believe","tag-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5130,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128\/revisions\/5130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}