The Road to the Kingdom

There are a few questions that I have wrestled with trying to understand the journey we go through on the road to God’s Kingdom.

Is there a difference between believing in God and having faith in God?

Are there levels of faith in God?

How does a person go from being totally unaware of God to having a personal relationship with Him where they have surrendered to Him as their Heavenly Father and King who through His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit will guide them down the road to the Kingdom?

The search for answers to those questions made me realize there must be a road. No one goes from being totally unaware of God to being totally committed overnight. It must be a journey. In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus says there are two gates that lead to two roads.

¹³ “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. ¹⁴ But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

At some point in life, everyone walking down the road of life comes to that fork in the road. They are presented with the thought that there is a Creator God. They either decide to go through the narrow gate leading to learning about the God of creation or they reject the possibility of God and choose not to believe in the idea of an all-powerful God. They go through the wide gate leading to destruction. We will follow a “traveler” who chooses the small gate leading to the narrow road that leads to life.

This traveler has reached the level of believing there is a God and wanting to learn more. I looked up definitions of believe in a Google search. Here is what I found.

1. accept something as true; feel sure of the truth of.
2. hold something as an opinion; think or suppose.

Two different levels of “believe”, feel sure or suppose. So, what drew the traveler to the narrow path? Romans 10:14 says,

¹⁴ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

This is where the Body of Christ steps in to help our traveler learn about God. When the Holy Spirit gives us an opening to answer questions the traveler has, and we answer with our own journey experience, with the help of the Holy Spirit our traveler begins to understand and has reach definition 1 from above, “feel sure of the truth”. But how does the traveler get from believing that fact that God exists to putting his faith and trust in Him?

In another search I found the definition of what “believe” means in the Bible. “Believe” (Greek: pisteuo) means far more than intellectual agreement; it signifies a deep, personal trust, reliance, and commitment of one’s life to God and Jesus Christ. A much deeper definition of “believe”. At the beginning of his journey, our traveler has not reached this level yet.

In my experience in my faith journey, I believed and never doubted the facts of Christianity at an early age. I went to church and catechism classes regularly but did not have a personal relationship with God until He opened my eyes in my late 30’s. I “believed” in God (accept something is true) but did not have “faith” in Him. I lived for myself, not for Him. I went to church every week but was totally self-focused.

However, through years of listening to God’s Word preached, doing Bible study and watching the witness of God’s people (Romans 10:14), at God’s chosen time, He spoke to me through a conference speaker with the words “change your conduct or change your name”. The speaker was saying don’t call yourself Christian and live like the world. With those words God broke my stone heart and began to draw me to Himself. It still took years for me to completely surrender, but I was on the narrow road.

Back to our traveler. He believes in God, but now what? Probably the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, shows the road to growth if we understand the deeper definition of believe that was shared above. “Believe” (Greek: pisteuo) means far more than intellectual agreement; it signifies a deep, personal trust, reliance, and commitment of one’s life to God and Jesus Christ. The Biblical definition of faith is in Hebrews 11:1…

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

So, there is a difference between believing in God and faith in God. Faith is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

Without that faith we are on our own in this dark world.  Faith gives us hope which in turn allows us to love. It takes faith in God to have real hope and hope in God’s promises to be able to love God and others. At the end of Paul’s message about gifts from God in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 13, Paul writes love is the greatest gift of all.

1 Corinthians 13:13 says, And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

John 3 we find Jesus’ talking with Nicodemus, a top Jewish teacher. Jesus defines what brings us into God’s Kingdom. Jesus told Nicodemus, “we must be born again”. 

John 3:1-7 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with Him.”

³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.

⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 

Our traveler must be born again, born of the Spirit. When he is, the Holy Spirit will come into his life as his guide and counselor. In Acts 2:38-39 Peter said,

“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

When our traveler listens to the Holy Spirit as guide and counselor, the Holy Spirit will help him produce the Fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-26 show us the fruit of the Spirit that the Spirit will help him produce in his life. It is the “fruit of the Spirit”, not the fruit of the traveler.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking, and envying each other.

At this point, our traveler has reached the place of total surrender to God and the guidance of His Spirit in the day-to-day choices he makes in life. Does this mean he will never be tempted by Satan again? Of course not, but he will always have the Holy Spirit to guide him away from the temptation.

There are a couple of “word pictures” I believe that help us get a better understanding of what surrendering means in day-to-day situations. First is the idea of a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. They are both telling us what they think we should do. That picture is very close to reality. We just need to recognize the voices and follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance. If we compare the thoughts we are “hearing” to what we know Scripture says, we can determine which voice we choose to listen to.

The second example is in the form of a question. If you think of your life as traveling in a car, where does the Holy Spirit sit? Is He in the back seat and occasionally offers comments? Is He in the passenger seat and from that position able to give more guidance? Or is He the driver and you go where He takes you? The answer tells us how surrendered we are. If the Holy Spirit is our driver, we are totally surrendered.

When our traveler reaches the point that the Holy Spirit has become the “driver” in his life, he will have reach what Jesus called the Faith of a child…

Matthew 18:3 says, And Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

To me the best example of what “faith of a child” means is a father throwing his toddler up in the air and catching him. The toddler laughs will excitement. He not only enjoys it, but he also has no fear of falling. He has total faith that his father loves him and would never do anything to harm him. Harm does not even enter his mind. That is the faith of a child to me. Think about how many times Scripture says, “do not be afraid” or “do not worry”. Those verses are asking us to have the faith of a child.

When our traveler grows to have the faith of a child, he will be able to see the Kingdom of God all around him. As the old song says, “The things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace”.