Are they the same thing?

Lee Strobel says “receive” and “believe” are two different things. When he spoke at Passion City Church, and gave The Case for Christ sermon, he made a point of saying you may believe, but unless you receive Jesus you are not a child of God. He points out the verse that clarified it for him, John 1:12. “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God…”

The “avalanche of evidence” that Strobel had gathered and believed, he concluded, was not enough. He realized he had to “Receive the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased for me on the cross when He died as my substitute to pay for all of my sin. When I received this free gift of His grace, then I would become a child of God.” And that’s when Strobel knelt before God and confessed his immoral past. And then He knew he had received complete forgiveness.

Start Minute 28:21—to hear about believe and receive.