You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.  Trust in the LORD forever for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.  Isaiah 26:3-4

“Let not your heart be troubled,” said Jesus in the Upper Room at the Feast of the Passover, “ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:6, KJV).  When Jesus spoke those words, there were plenty of reasons for His followers to be worried and troubled.  He had just taken a basin and washed the feet of the disciples, telling them that there was a traitor in their midst who would betray Him.  As He took the cup to share the Passover meal, Satan entered into the heart of Judas, who would sell Christ for 30 pieces of silver.

Peter, though, is quick to say, “I’ll never betray you, Lord,” and Jesus responds that before the cock crows three times, he will also betray Him.  Yet Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  I am convinced that when Jesus spoke those words He was looking far beyond the small group who sat at that table on the night of the Gethsemane experience.  He was also speaking to those whose hearts have been broken and crushed by grief.  He was speaking to the young mother whose baby is stillborn, the wife whose husband is stricken with cancer, the childless couple who can’t understand why so many have abortions when they desperately want a child, the youth who can’t get a job, and the lonely heart without a friend.

“Don’t let your heart be troubled.”  Do those words speak to the need of your life?  Then He gave them a reason and a hope.  “You believe in God, believe also in me.”  It was true, they did believe in God.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all worshiped the Almighty.  It’s safe to believe in God.  You are on the side of the majority who opt for God, motherhood, and virtue.  Who can argue with that?  But believing in Jesus Christ is often another matter.

Why is it easier to believe in God than in Christ?  Two reasons:  To believe in His Son requires confronting the issue of who He was and why He came.  This, of course, includes the sticky issue of sin–largely our own– and that means that we either fall at His feet, claiming Him as our Savior, or deny Him and turn and walk away from Him.

The second reason that it is difficult is that He is no longer seen in the flesh.  A little boy of about 5 showed up at the table with dirty hands so his mother said, “Before we can thank Jesus for our food, you go and wash those hands. As the little guy was walking down the hall to the bathroom, she yelled, “And use soap and hot water to kill those germs.”  Irritated the little boy grumbled, “Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus.  All I hear around this house is germs and Jesus, and I’ve never seen either one of them.”

The reality, however, is that the life of Jesus Christ is one of the best documented facts of history.  There are scores of events with only shreds of actual historical evidence to support them which are readily accepted, yet alleged scholars try to deny the historicity of Jesus Christ when there is an abundance of evidence supporting what He did and said.

“Believe also in me,” says Jesus to a skeptical world today.  “Believe that My words are true; believe that I came from the Father and died for your sins; believe that death is not the end, that you are not a victim of your heredity or your circumstances; believe that your life can be different from those who have no hope.”

“Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation,” wrote the Quaker scholar J. Elton Trueblood.  It is simply accepting at face value the truth of what Jesus said.  “Stop letting your heart be troubled.” And when you do that, your life will change.

 

Resource reading: John 13:18-38.