It’s Funny What People Will Believe…

It is interesting to me what some people will believe.  Our culture abounds with “conspiracy theories” about who killed JFK and what really happened on 9/11.  People have some very strange ideas about life but perhaps the strangest ideas are linked to the spiritual realm.  I had a conversation with a man who believed in reincarnation.  He told me that he believed that your “spirit”, if you could call it that, would manifest itself in different ways in different “lifetimes’.  I looked down at the concrete step we were standing on and asked him if he thought he could have at one point been a concrete step to which he said, “Yes”.  I wondered if perhaps he had a personality that was easy to “walk over”?  This guy was very intelligent.  He had a Ph.D. in Physics.

Christianity essentially asks people to believe in one single event; the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  If you believe in that, you pretty much have to believe everything else that Jesus said.  Yet most people do not believe in the resurrection.  But they will believe a lot of other things.  In the gospel of Mark, chapter 6 we see Jesus’ ministry beginning to “gain traction” in the world.  His ministry and His miracles come to the attention of King Herod.  This is what we read starting in verse 14:  14 Now King Herod heard of Him (Jesus), for His name had become well known. And he said, “John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.”  15 Others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is the Prophet, or like one of the prophets.”  16 But when Herod heard, he said, “This is John, whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead!”

King Herod had John the Baptist killed and he was not willing to believe that John had actually come back to life.  But Herod was apparently never willing to believe that Jesus came back to life.  Herod had no real evidence that Jesus was a resurrected John the Baptist…yet there were ample reasons to believe that Jesus was resurrected…yet Herod was willing to believe the undocumented, unverified idea.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a verified historical event…yet believing it carries with it “baggage”.  It carries with it a surrender of our lives to Him.  Jesus said many things about who we are and who He is.  If He is truly resurrected, then we should truly follow Him.

What do you believe about the resurrection?  Everything in your life today and for eternity pivots around that belief.  Don’t be wrong about the resurrection!