Why was the book of John written? According to John 20:30-31 it was written to help us believe that [tag]Jesus[/tag] is the [tag]Christ[/tag]. The scripture says:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may [tag]believe[/tag] that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
-John 20:30-31 (ESV)

But, what if we already believe? Does that mean that we should no longer read John and move on to a book written for another purpose? Of course not. It means that we should continue to read John’s gospel, continue to consume it’s truth in order to make it a part of who we are and strengthen our belief.

I have been thinking about [tag]belief[/tag] for the last few days and I am just now starting to realize how big it can be. I think we all know that there are varying degrees of belief in Christ. There are those people that say they believe in word and deny it with their actions. There are those that say they believe and live it out (at least as far as the outside observer sees). And, of course there are those believe and actually allow that belief to shape the course of their lives.

All of this is obvious even to the casual observer, but I have been trying to think of this on a deeper level. [tag]Abram[/tag] “believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as [tag]righteousness[/tag]” (Genesis 15:6, ESV). That’s a significant statement. Imagine the depth of Abram’s belief, it was life changing; but more than that, it was spirit changing and even future changing. It influenced his thinking, his living, his family, his household, the course of his life and the courses of the lives of his offspring even to present day.

I think most of the time we think of believing God as something that we do once (when we come to know Jesus) and then we are finished, but I don’t think that is God’s intention. Our belief must grow. It must penetrate the deepest part of who we are and still dig deeper. We must become consumed by our belief and allow it to change us from the inside out. We must never be satisfied with where we are but strive for deeper relationship and more life changing belief. After all, we just need the faith of a mustard seed to move mountains (Matthew 17:20). The last time I looked, all the mountains were still located where they have always been…so I guess we all have a long way to go.