Believing God Is "Indeed" God

Understand, therefore, that the LORD your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands. But he does not hesitate to punish and destroy those who reject him. Therefore, you must obey all these commands, decrees, and regulations I am giving you today. [Deuteronomy 7.9-11] 

We live in a day when people "believe" in God, but their actions and lifestyles don't reflect that they believe He is indeed God.

It is one thing to say, "I believe in God," and another altogether to live in a way that shows it. What this amounts to is obeying God.

People are incapable of effectively believing God just because they say so. To believe God is indeed God is to obey Him. It is this distinction that reveals Jesus Christ because, obeying God is something mankind proves every day it is incapable of, while Jesus obediently suffered the due punishment and destruction of those who reject God: death.

To fully understand how Jesus obeyed God and therefore how we obey God, we must consider the following passage:

And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. [Deuteronomy 6.5]

And, here is how Jesus interpreted it:

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” [Matthew 22.34-40]

When Jesus defined the "greatest commandment," He quoted Deuteronomy 6.5. He further expounded though on what the greatest commandment looked like (not just sounded like). To love God is to love as God and that is precisely what Jesus said and did (John 3.16).

Remember what James wrote in the New Testament? 

You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. [James 2:19]

The difference between believing God as the demons believe in God and believing God is indeed God is found in Jesus' "second commandment," loving our neighbor as ourself. No demon ever died for anyone else even though they believe in God. Jesus didn't just "say" He believed in God, He lived it to the extreme example of the Cross. 

When we believe God is indeed God, we too will take up our cross and follow Jesus.

So, while we may say we believe in God today, the litmus test whether or not we genuinely believe He is indeed God is what we do. In Deuteronomy (the Old Testament) that looked like obeying strict rules. In New Testament times (today), it looks like Jesus Christ; loving others to the point of death.

Father, I know You are indeed God. But I also know my words mean nothing if my actions do not reflect that I am looking only to You - if my actions are not loving others in selfless abandon. May genuinely loving You be evident in my life as I obediently and selflessly love others. So be it.