Belief

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'"

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

As it is said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Hebrews 3:7-19

     As I have thought back through the sins of my lifetime, it seems to me that they are, without fail, rooted in unbelief. Even my pride, which I have found to be the sneakiest and meanest of sins, seems to be grounded in unbelief as well. I find that all my anxieties stem from a failure to truly, honestly believe in God's goodness and ability to provide. Pride rears up because I have put my own strength ahead of trust in God--once again, not believing in Him so much as in myself. As a side note, what a silly thing that is--to believe in the capacity of a cracked vessel rather than in the purpose of the One who formed that vessel. In that light, it seems a strange thing to believe in oneself.

     Those are merely a couple of examples, but I could go on. Fear, lust, hate, anger, gossip, slander, malice, and in every other way I may disobey I find that it originates in unbelief. I do not truly believe that God is God, that He is powerful, that He has overcome the world, that I will be accountable for every careless word I speak, and so on. I was convicted of this over and over, and I have been pondering it for weeks. If I truly believe the Bible is the true and inspired word of God, if I truly believe in His utter sovereignty, than I will live a different kind of life. I will live in awe and reverence, completely and irrevocably transformed by His great compassion and His might and power. And not just I, but all of us who claim His name.

     So my question is: Do we truly believe? I may have written this before, but it bears repeating. Do we believe in God the same way we believein George Washington? Yes, I believe that a man existed named George Washington, that he was a great leader, and that he did a lot of wonderful things. Believing this, however, does not change my life. I also believe in nursing infants and in training my children to walk with the Lord. Both of these believes have altered the way I live my daily life. Nursing a baby changed the products I bought, the structure of my days, and many other things. Teaching my own is also a lifestyle and not merely an intellectual acknowledgement, and it has completely turned my world upside down.
   
     My point is this: We, in confessing belief in the Lord Christ, must believe in such a way that it alters our lifestyle and changes our perspective. God is calling us to a belief much more practical than a verbal concession. He is calling us to a belief that transforms us, that brings our eyes off the transient and temporal things around us to the eternal things that we cannot see. He is calling us to love recklessly and without thought for recompense. He is calling us to believe that He is bigger and more powerful than our weakness and frailty. His calling is not to walk a path of safety, professing belief with our lips while walking in unbelief with our feet. He is calling us to abandon ourselves utterly to Him, trusting that even if He leads us through the valley of the shadow of death, He will never leave us there. He is calling us to a belief that goes beyond hymnals, music, and Bible study and goes out into our every day experience.

      For as I have come to see, a true belief and acceptance of Jesus as Lord over every element of my life brings me to my knees in awe, in repentance, and in abject submission because He is truly powerful and He is my King, my life... my everything. There is nothing outside of His power and no person beyond His grasp. His way is perfect, and I do not have to understand "why" but I can trust Him even when circumstances are beyond my grasp. The fact is, I could never understand "why" because I am a creation--God is Creator, infinite in wisdom and understanding, and His thoughts and ways are as far from mine as my thoughts and actions are from the insects in my garden. It has taken years, but finally I believe with an undivided heart.... and that realization has left me weak in the knees for the greatness of a God who can do such amazing things as ours has done, and yet has given Himself to atone for the horrendous things that I have done.

     Friends, this belief is no trifle, and this King is not to be trifled with either! He is a great and compassionate God, but He is also a holy and jealous God. He longs for us all to love Him as He has loved us, and yet He will never force us. Make no mistake, we will bear the consequence of our choice: Life changing belief will lead us to eternal life, or unbelief that ends in death. I urge us all today, myself included, to give ourselves with sheer abandon to complete acceptance of what the Bible says--not to study it and to puff ourselves up with knowledge that goes nowhere but only clogs our minds and hearts, but to live it out daily in our homes, with our spouses, in our churches, behind the wheel, in the grocery store, even in scrubbing the toilets. Let our every day and every breath be swallowed up in belief and in rejoicing that the Lord is truly and unequivocally good. If He is our portion and if it is in Him we trust, no circumstance nor dread can change that. Put your hope in God, for He alone is unchanging. As James writes, do not let yourselves be blown and tossed by the wind (James 1:5-8), but trust Him without reserve and believe Him with all your heart. There is no greater joy, and there is no greater peace than the Rock of our salvation!

Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!

 For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

 Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!  

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.

Psalms 37:1-9

Scripture quotations are from the ESV^® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.