Anyone who has learnt enough about Jesus Christ and the Bible and never once questioned their authenticity at any point is either being dishonest or delusional. Let’s be real. The Bible speaks of a man who mysteriously parts a red sea. Another man possessed super human strength. Then there’s one who lived within the belly of a whale. And of course there’s Jesus Christ himself; the Son of God ushered in the faith that humans can be saved and be revived from the dead. But is Jesus actually real?
Fake faith?
Quite frankly, without the significance that for so long has been placed around Jesus, many more people would merely see the stories involving him to be no different from Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia. And any sensible person who thrives on logic would be very right to believe that Jesus was just a fantasy based on the facts they can see.
This is especially true when the “logic” for trusting in Jesus has always been just believe. After all, having faith does not seem to prevent a bored spouse from cheating on you. Nor does it seem to magically cause ten million dollars to appear in your bank account.
How does one start believing in Jesus?
Yet it’s interesting that anyone still reading at this point may actually have more faith than a lot of Christians who claim they wholeheartedly believe in Jesus. What many who believe in Jesus need to ask themselves is, “How did I start believing in Jesus?” And is it really fair to expect others to start believing in HIM the same way?
The same way a Christian may judge and shy away from a madman who claims to be Jesus is the same way a non-believer may feel about people constantly telling them to just believe in HIM.
Not all will believe
Realistically speaking, it is pretty unfair to ask anyone to believe in something or someone just because you do. On its own, what you believe does not generally add any tangible value in relation to someone else just believing.
And it does not help the situation that anything you believe can actually be right or wrong; this is what many believers do not wish to believe (or accept). So now that this is out in the open, do you believe? Jesus is real. Do you believe? If you did not believe before, then at this point you probably still do not believe.
People need something to believe in
Originally, many people did not believe in Jesus before they’d seen with their own eyes what he was capable of. Today is no different. During a time where anyone can practically write their own book and publish it, it is only logical that a lot of people would sensibly draw their own conclusions that Jesus and the Bible were made up; they would also believe that billions of people have long bought into the story simply because they desperately need something stupendous and mysterious to believe in.
People need proof
How so many people cannot comprehend the obvious is really interesting. If you want to convince someone why something is real you have to prove it. Telling someone they should believe does not prove that it is real; they need to be shown the truth in one way or another.
Whether it’s your job, God’s job, their job or someone else’s job to facilitate the showing of the truth, that’s a different story. But the fact remains that “believing” may be the starting point for someone to believe in Jesus; but it does not necessarily mean that those who don’t are lost or clueless. They just may not have seen sufficient proof to believe.
So is Jesus actually real?
Because people need to see some sort of proof before believing that Jesus is real, the question those who don’t believe in HIM may really need to ask themselves is, “Will believing in Jesus add to my life or subtract from it? And regardless of the answer they then need to determine how and why?”
If their response is a positive one, they then have reason to start believing in Jesus. If the opposite turns out to be the case, then they haven’t been “shown” enough proof. But the one thing any logical person would easily agree on is that a life believing in Jesus Christ would always have more meaning than one spent believing in nothing meaningful at all. Jesus will always be more real than fake righteousness!
