John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled ...
There is a reason the Lord is saying, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” Life is such that there are many opportunities to have a troubled heart. So Jesus is saying, “Don’t let it be troubled.” Then He tells us how we can keep it from being troubled.
John 14:1 ...you believe in God, believe also in Me.
The literal translation of the Greek reads a little differently: …believe into God, believe also in Me. Most Christians believe in God, but while doing so they have Him up in the sky somewhere and they are separated from Him. So, you can believe in God because you have some idea of what He is, what He can do, and so forth, but Jesus is saying, “Believe into Him.” This kind of believing removes the separation and takes you into His life.
Of course, at this particular time He is Jesus the Nazarene teaching His disciples. For us, He is not a man in a physical body. He is Spirit and that makes it possible for us to come into Him. If Jesus was in the form of a man, that would be impossible. But because He is Spirit, it is very possible to believe into God and to also believe into Him. When you are believing into Him, you are moving into a place in the Lord where your heart will not be troubled. You can have the kind of relationship with God that regardless of the circumstances you will have a joy in your heart without being troubled.
I Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Be thankful for all things, whether they seem to be good or bad. Being aware that all things work together into good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28) goes a long way in keeping your heart from being troubled.
We are talking about a total change whereby you see things differently. Naturally speaking, our moods are determined by our circumstances. The things people experience are usually what causes them to be one way or another, and they are tossed to and fro like the waves of the sea. James talks about that. Have faith without wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:6-8. Set your heart to believe and do not let circumstances cause doubt. Doubt crosses out the belief. You just wasted a lot of believing with your doubt.
We don’t want to change our believing because of the circumstances so Jesus says, “Do not let your heart be troubled." Just don’t let it be so. By saying that He is telling us, “Now, you can determine whether your heart is troubled or not troubled.” So, don’t let your heart be troubled.
Question: So how do you do that? How do you get to that point where there is not that flesh nature of your feelings taking over?
Let me see if I can explain it this way. Do you know how you can learn to make right decisions? By making a lot of wrong ones! You will learn to not let your heart be troubled when things come and you set heart. You fail, but you try again. You get up and you say, “I’m not going to let my heart be troubled,” and you fail. But what is happening when you fail? You are learning the grace of the Lord God because you can fail a thousand times and God still loves you and He is still there to help you. Then you can say, “Boy, I am beginning to learn what the grace of God really is.” But when Jesus says, “Don’t let your heart be troubled,” that sounds like He is putting all the responsibility upon you, but He isn’t and that is why He adds, “You believe into God; believe also into Me.” You are going to do it by setting your heart: “I’m determined. Now this is what the Lord said and it is going to be.”
You will find that the promises and provisions in the Bible, and the things the Lord says that you are to do or become, are impossible for you to do. It has to be Him accomplishing them in you. You say, “Lord, my heart still gets troubled at times. I’m having a difficult time. Lord, be my dedication! Be my strength! Be that which heals my troubled heart! I know that You can bring me to the place where the circumstances are not going to move me.”
Jesus said, "The prince of this world comes but he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30). What is in us that enables Satan to cause our hearts to be troubled? Things of self! When we find ourselves troubled over circumstances, it is because the things of self are in resonance with the circumstances. The emptying of the things of self is necessary. The first thing Jesus tells us to do if we want to come after Him is to "deny self" (Matthew 16:24). Deny self; get rid of the “me, my, and mine” – my faith, my dedication, my prayer, my walk, me, me, me. The things of self have to be eliminated. The sooner we realize we can do nothing, the sooner we will overcome. Listen to what Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing of Himself" (John 5:19); "I can of Mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30). We must realize that of ourselves we can do nothing. Stop struggling and let the Lord be in you!
A person outside of Christ is moved by every circumstance. He or she is constantly battered to and fro by circumstances. Then he becomes a Christian and he learns to have faith. He makes some progress with his faith, but eventually he learns the greater truth that his faith is not going to work after all. It has to be the Lord's faith. The Lord will work in your life to eliminate everything that is yours. Paul said, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you act as those it is yours?” (I Corinthians 4:7).
There is a reason the Lord would say, “Believe into God and believe into Me.” It is in your relationship. It’s where you are becoming one with Him and all that He is takes the place of all that you are. Paul talks about it in Galatians 2:20: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. Paul didn’t say, “I’m living by my faith in the Son of God.” He said: I live by the faith of the Son of God. It is His faith. Paul is saying, “I can’t even claim that faith as my own. It is His faith.” Everything that we have been has to be replaced with all that He is. We must become all that He is, "the fullness of Him that fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:23).
Copyright © 2010 by Henry DuBose