“Don’t believe something just because you want to, and don’t embrace an idea just because you’ve always believed it. Believe what is biblical.” Francis Chan
Christians believe a lot of strange things. We believe God visited His creation through the womb of a virgin. We believe in angels. We believe a donkey once talked. We believe in heaven. We believe in hell. We believe all sorts of things that ‘logical’ people would classify as illogical.
What we believe shapes how we live. If you believe that a spider bite could transform you into a human with spider-like abilities, you’d either do all that you could to get bitten by a spider or you’d avoid spiders at all costs. A silly example I know but it serves to illustrate that what we believe shapes how we live. Our beliefs, for better or worse shape the decisions we make about ourselves, people, the world around us, and most importantly God.
If you want to know what you believe, just stop long enough to examine how you’re living. Fear, anxiety, worry, stress, anger, bitterness, greed – these are all reactions to what we believe. There is no aspect of life that is not impacted or influenced by our beliefs.
And just to be clear, everyone is a believer. That is to say that everyone has a set of beliefs, even if those beliefs say, ‘I don’t believe in anything,’ well, a statement of disbelief is still a statement of belief.
What we believe is a big deal.
“God wants me to be happy.”
“God wants me to prosper in all I do.”
“God wants me to accomplish all my dreams.”
These are things that we want to believe, things that make us feel good about ourselves and God. The problem with believing these things (and things like this) is that they’re not true. Just because something makes us feel good does not mean it is right. At the heart of each of those beliefs is the underlying belief that God exists to serve me. And if we believe that, we’ll miss God altogether.
Rather than search the scriptures to see if the scriptures support what I want to be true, approach the Author of the scriptures with all humility declaring, “What I believe will be formed around what you reveal in your Word.” Beliefs formed by His Word will lead to a people who live out His Word every moment, every day.
“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:31 (NLT)
