BELIEVE INTO His aliveness.
By saying that anyone spiritually connected to Him was connected to eternal aliveness, Jesus claimed to be one with the Father. In response, the angry religionists filled their clips and got ready to gun Him down.
Jesus asked them which of His life-giving miracles had earned Him a death sentence. They replied that it wasn’t the miracles that got Him in trouble, but rather His claim to be one with the Father. Jesus responded by saying that both His teachings and His miracles weren’t actually His, but His Father’s. “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does…” (John 10:37). In other words, “You need to talk to God if you’ve got an issue with Me. I’m giving a new level of life—better, longer life—to those who believe I can. I’m doing exactly what the Father is doing. Can’t you see the divinity? I’m helping, healing, forgiving, encouraging and caring. I’m giving life. Doesn’t that remind you of Someone?”
What’s that old expression? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck…it must be a duck!
“Then perhaps things will come together for you, and you’ll see that not only are we doing the same thing, we are the same—Father and Son. He is in me; I am in him” (John 10:38, msg).
My son Jeremy was, in a sense, in my loins before he was born. And some of my DNA and features are in him (poor boy). We are in each other.
This talk of oneness and being “in each other” screamed “blasphemy!” to the religious rule-keepers. They tried to seize Jesus, but it wasn’t His time to punch out yet. He slipped away from the scene of strife and went to a rural area on the Jordan River. Those curious about life and hungry for the kind of life He spoke of followed Him there and listened to His words of life. And in that place many believed in Jesus (John 10:42).
Fourteen different verses in John contain the words believe and life. We believe our way into God-life. It only takes a tiny seed of true faith to believe into life (John 3:16).
Life Question: What do you think about the people who followed Jesus to the Jordan River and believed in Him in that place? Did they believe enough to possess eternal life? Do you?