The meaning of believing, as revealed by Jesus, marks the beginning of our ascent in the spiritual life. It’s the very first step. Unfortunately, you usually won’t find the necessary next step taught in our churches. Believing is really just an affirming of a thought held by the natural mind. What must then take place is a dropping of our attachment to a personal self (dying to self), which then allows God to manifest in us as our true Life. In other words, to know as Jesus did, “When you see me, you see the Father”. Intellectual belief is where we must all start, but we need to move beyond belief to the level of inner realization. To know like Jesus, the truth of who you are.
Frank Johnson

Remember how we were told to simply believe in Jesus? It never dawned on us that in the end all we really had, was a BELIEF being held by our natural mind. No one ever showed us how to take the next step. How to awaken within to that same Christ-nature. If you mention this to most Christians, you’re likely to get some response regarding “New Age” thinking. This is what Religion has done to the honest, sincere seeker. In the past, we ended up believing with our minds, still living in our heads, and remained completely unaware of our true Life, the Divine nature within us. It never occurred to us that believing is just the egoic mind following a new religious path, while relying on our own human effort and willpower to conform. We had eyes, but we didn’t see.
~ Frank Johnson