The Blessedness of Belief

UV 778/10,000 The Blessedness of Belief “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.” Luke 1 v 45 Scripture underlines the importance of belief while the dominating principle of the world is reason. The word ‘ belief’ consists of two words “ be” and “ lief”. The word “ lief” can also be re-arranged to form the word “life”. Lief means “ kingdom” in poetic language. So when we believe, we live as part of the Kingdom of God. It is written that Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and this led to the immaculate conception of Jesus, the promised Messiah in her womb. We too are overshadowed by the Holy Spirit when we believe. The conception of the immaculate or perfection begins in us and we too begin to aspire and do what is hitherto considered impossible for us. When man first broke faith with God and disbelieved His words, he became cursed. When we believe the Word of God again, we are blessed. We have access to all the blessings of the Lord when we believe in Jesus and His Word. We move from the zone of disgrace into the zone of grace, from the penalty of our sins to the rewards for our faith, from the “hamartia” of shortcoming to the “ hyperbole” of exceeding all expectations. It is not as if our belief is unreasonable or blind. It is based on our prior experiences of the ability and faithfulness of God to fulfilling His promises to us. ‘Seeing is no longer believing’ as the world taught us. It is ‘experiencing that is believing’. As we believe in Christ, our beliefs will not belie us. He has already proved by His life, His deeds and his death and resurrection that He would go to any extent to redeem us and more than justify our belief in Him. Our response should be like that of Mary to glorify the Lord in our souls and to rejoice in God our Saviour. We should be grateful forever that He has been mindful to us and fulfilled His promise to us. We should remember and praise Him for the great and mighty deeds He has performed for us. He has vindicated our faith and justified or made straight the paths of our lives. He has declared us “blessed” for ever and for all generations. Who are we or others to disagree? For indeed, blessed is he who hears His Word and keeps it. ‘Keeping it’ implies that we esteem it as valuable, we store it in our minds, recount it, believe it, declare it and obey it. As we believe the Word, it releases us from the limitations of our situations, the limitations of our resources, the limiting conditioning and fears of our existence and releases in us the grace and power of God. Prateep V Philip