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To believe Jesus depends on knowing who Jesus is, and we learn who Jesus is in the stories of Scripture. According to John 1:7-13, to receive Jesus is to believe in Him. God gives those who believe Him the authority to become children of God. A person becomes a child of God by receiving Jesus. The phrases “God gave” and “born of the will of God” in Jn. 1:12-13 speak of the activity of God in a person’s believing. Jesus and believing and salvation are all a gift, rooted in the grace and action of God toward helpless humanity.
In the stories in John 1 and 2, the disciples came to believe in Jesus through the testimony of John the Baptist and Christ’s miracles. People told other people about Jesus, and the people who were told trusted the testimony of the people who pointed them to Jesus. It is very hard for children to believe the positive words of testimony about Jesus from people who lack integrity, who fail to live a Jesus kind of life. In John 2, Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine revealed Jesus’ glory, and his disciples believed in him.
In the story about Nicodemus in John 3, Nicodemus is trying to make sense of being born again/from above, and Jesus says this spiritual event is not something you can produce through human effort or turn into a mathematical equation. It is not even something you can fully understand, but you can experience the effects of it. A person cannot believe in Jesus (receive Jesus) unless the person surrenders or abandons themselves to Jesus. To receive Jesus requires abandoning/surrendering myself to Jesus, giving up control, allowing Jesus to do something for me that I cannot do for myself.
There is no such thing as perfect believing. We believe as we can, and we renew our believing each moment as we continue believing. Believing/receiving Jesus is not a one-time affair. It goes on moment by moment.