Ok so now that I’ve graduated from Charis Bible College I can finally talk about all the stuff I’ve had to put with these past few years. I kid I kid. I joke I joke. Belief System. That what’s the BS stand for. Relax. Yes, this is still a Christian blog. This isn’t going to be a post featuring me ranting about certain people’s behaviors. Now that we have that out of the way…let’s talk about your belief system.

First I’d like to encourage anybody who may be doubting God right now or find themselves in a state of unbelief. In Matthew 11 Jesus calls John the Baptist the greatest of prophets in the Old Testament, yet shortly before this in the chapter John sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one to come or if they should look for another. This is a guy who dedicated his life to paving the way for Jesus to come on the scene. He was filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb and was the one who baptized Jesus and heard the voice of the Father say “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased”. Yet he still ended up doubting if Jesus was the one after all of that. So if John the Baptist could doubt…anyone can.

It’s interesting to note what Jesus told John’s disciples. He told them to tell John that blind see, deaf hear, lame walk, the Gospel is being preached to the poor and more. This pointed John back to the scriptures he knew very well in Isaiah 35. It illustrates the importance of the message you are hearing and information control. We are meant to be persuaded by words. As the scripture says in Romans 10:17, “faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word”.  So belief is not something that we work up in our own power, it is something that happens to us as we hear the right message. The message about Jesus. Who He is, His character, what He has done for us, etc.

A good example of the effect the message you hear has on you is the news. Many people habitually listen to the news every day. What is the news known for broadcasting? Bad news. They know this is what gives them the best ratings so they purposely focus on crime and all the other bad stuff out there to get people talking and keep them coming back for more. Even though there are tons of good things happening, all they seem to focus on are the bad things. Ever notice the effect this has on people who watch the news habitually? They are usually full of fear. Is this just because they are fearful people? No. It’s because of the message they are filling up are.

As Bertie Brits says, trust is when you find yourself at rest in the integrity of another. When you believe what God believes, you will find yourself coming to a place of rest. You are actually able to cast your cares on God and go about enjoying your life walking in the cool of the day with God. But how does trust come? You have to get to know the person. If you walk up to a stranger and ask them to trust you, will they be able to? No. Why? Because they don’t know you. They may think you’re a good person and actually want to trust, but unless they know you well enough to come to a place of rest in your integrity, then they will not be able to trust you no matter how much they make actually want to.

So how do we deal with our belief systems? How do we change what we think? The two biggest problems in my opinion are apathy and ignorance. Apathy means you don’t care. It starts with a desire to do so. Assuming you care, then the main thing is learning about how God thinks and what He thinks of you. As you hear the message of the Gospel and Jesus, your belief system will naturally start to align with God’s. That’s the cool thing about it…you don’t have to change what you think on your own. God will do it for you as long as you are open to letting Him in. If you desire to know the truth, God will find ways to get it to you.

Many preachers will preach that we have to believe, believe, believe, Trust, trust, trust. And while that is true, they are not preaching a message that brings forth that belief and trust. Simply saying that they have to believe isn’t going to get them to a place where they can believe. It sends them out to try to accomplish believing in their own ability…not gonna happen. That’s not how it works.

Along those same lines, many preachers focus on getting people to act right. They want people to do more, give more, love more, etc. Many of them have good intentions but what they don’t seem to realize is that in doing so they are getting away from the core message of the Gospel. This has happened so much that if you ask the average person what Christianity is about they will most likely say something along the lines of having good morals, being a good person, etc. Christianity is not about being a nice person, however you will become a nice person as you get to know God and His love for you. It’s a fruit of the spirit (kindness, Gal. 5:22) that happens as a result of an organic transformation. It’s about relationship with God. This is not just a message for beginner Christians…it’s something we all need to be feeding on all the time. Or else it’s easy to go astray. Joseph Prince wrote a book a few years ago entitled “Right Believing Lead To Right Doing”. I was very skeptical of it when it came out. I had not heard that type of a message very much at the time but have come to realize this as truth, especially for the long-term. You may be able to motivate somebody to do good things out of fear for a while, but that only last so long. They will eventually get burnt out if they are not believing right.

Look at the dynamic at work between Jesus and the Father. We never see the Father giving Jesus a direct command to go and do everything He was doing. We do see Him saying “This is my son in whom I’m well pleased”. This was before Jesus did anything in his public ministry. I believe it was that statement that propelled Jesus’ ministry and something I believe He went back and remembered continuously. It was the fuel for His entire ministry. This same dynamic is the way it works with us too. As we hear about our right standing with God, His thought about us, His character, it will be the fuel for our Christian life and bring forth belief in Him naturally…not somebody telling us we have to believe more

1 Samuel 16:7 says people look at the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart. See people always want to look at what you’re doing and judge you by it but God knows your intentions and that is what He looks at. People don’t always know your intentions and we don’t always get it right in our actions. Does this mean that it just doesn’t matter what we do then? No, but you need to have confidence in how God sees you and what He looks at when He sees you. If you think He just sees all the bad stuff we do all the time, that will lead to guilt which will ruin your relationship with God. He knows that if we feel guilty we won’t want to be around Him. Think about how much a person wants to be around you if they owe you money. That’s why God didn’t even want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It wasn’t the tree of good and evil, it was the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. He knew if we had knowledge of it, we would never think we were doing enough to have confidence to be in His presence. He wants you to be fully persuaded of your right standing with Him, which we’ll get into next week.

If you are interested in dealing with your belief system, then I would encourage you to talk to God about it and continue to fill up on grace messages from preachers like the one’s I have on my resources page. He will do it for you and you will find that it takes no effort on your part except giving Him the opportunity. I hope this blog helps you in your walk with God and belief in Him. Thanks for stopping by. Blessings.