Leaning is Believing
February 12, 2010
If you would like some help in keeping on track with your daily devotions, check out a website called Family Times. Each day Lou Nicholes offers a short devotional based on a Bible passage. Today’s passage talks about Jesus healing the nobleman’s son in John 4:43-54. You can receive the devotionals by email or you can read them online. Each devotional contains a biblical text, a brief explanation and an illustration.
Here’s today’s illustration:
When the great missionary, John C. Paton, was translating the Scriptures for his South Sea Islanders, apparently there was no word for “believe” in their native tongue. For a long while he was really baffled. One day a native came into his study and, being tired out, flung himself down on a chair, rested his feet on another chair and lay back full length, saying as he did so something about how good it was to lean his whole weight on those chairs. Instantly Dr. Paton noted the word the man used for “lean his whole weight on.” The missionary had his word for “believe.” He used it at once and thereafter in translating the Scriptures. Try it for yourself and see, in any verse that uses the word “believe,” if this is not true. (W. H. Griffith-Thomas).
What does it mean to “believe” in Jesus? It means to trust him the way you trust your bed at night. Lean upon Jesus completely, place your full weight on him.
If you lean on Jesus, he will take you all the way home to heaven.