"The Power!"

 "And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." (John 6:69 KJV)

  "Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?"" (John 11:25-26 NLT)

 Just enter your name, like this: "Do you believe this, Richard?" Yes, I do believe it! But I do need to keep reminding myself how important that it is, sad to say. Not really because I might doubt, because I really don't think I go that far; but I do from time to time forget about the awesome power that is yielded behind believing it with all my heart! 

 Interesting thing I discovered this morning, as I was looking at Acts 8:37 in the KJV, but when I went to the NLT, there was no verse 37; it went from 36 to 38, skipping 37 altogether. What is up with that? I know that I am not a Bible expert, that much is sure; but if Phillip said something that is in the KJV, why was it not in the NLT? Especially when it deals with something that might be of importance! 

 Anywho, you check it out for yourself and make your own determination. My assumption is that Phillip realized that the man truly believed, so he really did not bring up the requirement to be baptized, which was to first believe. The way that I have understood it, you must believe, which produces an inward change, and then you are baptized as an outward representation of the change that has happened within. 

 By the way, I have a feeling we are going to be witnessing a whole lot more outward expressions of what we believe, very soon. Not that it really matters to me, because I have already been made alive in Christ Jesus, in that regard. The point of having faith, is that we get a chance to use it! If you don't have a chance to use our faith, then how do we really know that we have it...

"Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:5-11 NLT)