In our last meeting with our #VirtuousCowgirls, we were talking about how to know if you were going to heaven or not. One of our girls brought up 1 John 5:10-15 which talks about those who believe have eternal life. John 3:16 also says if you believe you will not die, but have eternal life. Our #CornersoneVersOfTheDay also says that if you believe you are saved.
What does it mean to believe though? If you look at James 2:19, it says that even the demons believe and they shutter in fear. So just believing God is real is not enough. So, what is it? To believe in Jesus and be saved means that you don't just merely believe that He is real. To believe means to trust in, to rely on, and to cling to. You must Trust in God to believe. You must rely on Him to be saved. You must cling to His promises.
How does this look in real life application? It means that you trust that God has done the work through His Son, Jesus, to pay the death penalty for your sins. You rely on His Word to feed your soul. You cling to His promises for the future.
Do you do that? Do you believe? Do you trust that Jesus has paid the penalty for your sin and that you are now made right with God to be in his presence for all of eternity? Do you rely on His Word to live by it as He has designed each and every one of us to? Do you cling to His promises for the future? That He will come back for us to usher us into Heaven? That when we stand before the great white throne on Judgement day that Jesus will stand in your stead so you may dwell with the Lord forever?
When we live this way in our day-to-day life it sets us apart. It makes us holy. All the work that you put in with your horse sets you and your horse apart. As you want your horse to trust you, rely on you, and cling to you, so the Lord desires that we do the same with Him. At our Cowgirl Retreat this year, as we were heading out to the trails, we came upon a campsite that the kids were playing with those big inflatable balls that you climb into and bounce off of each other. To say it freaked the lead horses out was an understatement. The kids graciously got out of the horses' line of sight, but as the lead horses were balking and trying to turn around, I asked my mare to go around and keep walking. She got sight of the kids and wanted to turn tail with the rest of the horses, but I gently urged her to move forward, and she did.
That is what it looks like to believe. That when life throws scary things at us, we still keep doing what the Lord has called us to do through His word. That when we say it's scary or too hard, we still follow Him when He gently keeps encouraging us. My horses had no idea if she would live through that experience or not, but because I have been faithful to her, just as the Lord is faithful to us, she believed me. You ask your horse to believe you because you are believable. There is no one who deserves to be believed in more than God. Believe in Him in the same way that you want your horse to believe in you.