Why?

Over at the Christian Anime Alliance someone recently asked the question, 'Why do you continue to believe?' She didn't want to know why you first believed or how, but why do you continue to believe.

It's an interesting question, and an important one. Many times it seems to us that once a person comes to a point of belief in Christ, their continuance, growth and fulfilment is a forgone conclusion and yet in John 6:60ff we see that there was a time in Jesus life when many who had come to follow Him decided instead that they could no longer continue with Him. What a crushing moment that must have been for Him. He was a man who had given Himself to God. His whole mind, heart and life was dedicated to serving God, and so even though He would never see a nice house, a wife, children, and many of the aspects of life that are central to most who walk this Earth, He did not mind. His joy, His love were caught up instead with seeing the Father revealed and people redeemed. He had chosen to see His heart echo God's, transformed so that He would value the things God valued and love that which God loved with the love that only God knew. To others, discipleship may just have been one aspect of life, a religious following, but for Christ, it was everything. Such was His treasure, His hope. He had sacrificed everything in life that He might see lves transformed and saved. What a blow He must have felt when men chose to reject Him!

Perhaps it's me, but in verse 67 or John 6 I can almost hear the hurt in His voice. "Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?" If that is so, however, then I wonder how much joy He felt when He heard the answer of Peter, "Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God."

They weren't just words of devotion and continued commitment, they were the evidence of a work and a transformation that showed Peter as one who understood. It was the sound of a kindred spirit, one touched and claimed by God. Peter was now also whose life had been ruined by and for God; no longer fit for anything else or any other way.

Why did he continue? Why do I continue, why you?

For Peter that question was almost irrelevant. It wasn't why He continues, it is that it was incomprehensible to him that things could be any other way.

That was my answer to her and even though it can be a very fearful thing, I hope it can be yours, "At this point, it's not so much why I believe, it's that he is so real and present in my life that I can't not believe. God's non-existence is incomprehensible to me."