Heaviness of Belief & Faith

I was in the process of writing a different article and I stumbled across this subject. I have for a quite a while been personally convicted on the topic of faith. It's just as simple as it comes off to be, however I feel as though we often misunderstand what faith is actually at it's core. Yes, as a Christian, if you believe that Jesus died on the cross, took on your sins, and was the Son of God - you are saved.

Do you actually understand what that means though... to believe? Let me for a moment, challenge your faith and belief.

Dinx The Puppet, yes from TikTok - "You can believe your car will start, and it becomes faith when you turn the key to start it."

I find that this quote completely summarizes what I am getting at in this article. Let's dig a little deeper using the analogy here, and expanding on it a little bit.

If you're a blue collar worker, you get up every morning, get ready, and leave. You might really not give much thought to it, that there's a lot of belief in that process. While maybe the belief might not be something super impactful, there's a bunch.

You might have a uniform you put on. You've been told that you MUST wear that uniform or you can't work. So you therefore, have belief that wearing your uniform will help keep you employed. You might wear boots, believing that they will keep your feet safe, so you do risky work with them on. When you get to your car, you believe that it will start, so you hop it and smash the start button or turn the key. You believe that you'll operate this vehicle and it'll get you to work, so you drive there. When you show up to your job, you believe that you have a job, that you'll get paid, so you get out and work.

If you didn't believe any of that - that your shoes were pointless, that your uniform had no purpose, that your car wouldn't start, that you couldn't operate a vehicle, that you couldn't work, or that you wouldn't get paid... then why in the world would you do any of it?

Same scenario: Let's say you believe every bit of that. How do you use that belief to move forward? Well, you test it. Wouldn't it feel really weird to go and sit in your car, just absolutely knowing that it was going to start... yet fearing that if you smashed the start button it wouldn't? Then you just sit there and stare at the button.

"Well if you aren't starting your car out of fear, then do you actually believe it's going to start?"

EXACTLY. Bingo. 100%. Faith essentially is belief in practice. You live out what you believe by acting on it by faith that what you do everyday is founded on what you believe.

Faith in Christianity is very similar, because it is your faith in God, your belief in Jesus, and everything in between that proves out what is in your heart. It's hard to hear, but it's the truth; if you are praying for something, but standing still, you're wanting a gift - not testing your faith. It always shocks me how many stories I hear online of folks "dedicating their lives" to Christ, yet they don't change anything, they don't move, they don't accept challenges, they just... tick the boxes and think that if you tick the boxes, you get God's grace.

From a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ perspective; this is the answer to your anxiety, never feeling enough, or always questioning whether or not we're doing the right things. It's faith. If you truly believe, and you put that belief into practice, you will find that it defeats all of those things... rather quickly.

Paul actually tells us that we should be testing our own faith.

When you're in church, moved by the power of worship, singing lyrics that glorify God, hear a truly convicting sermon... and then leave the church, gossip with your friends at lunch, get angry with your crazy kids, spend the next 3 hours decorating yourself for a party, worrying about your next paycheck, refuse to help others because you're busy, and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever makes you happy instead of focusing on things that could affect the people around you, like paying bills, going grocery shopping, etc. - then I urge you to ask yourself a really important question.

Ask yourself - "Do I really believe that Jesus Christ is king? Do I really believe that God has this?"

Note: I don't say this in a negative context. I mean for this to challenge you so that you grow in your faith... not that you feel defeated. Keep that in mind as we go on.

Don't hear what I am not saying; you may believe, but you've got no faith. How do I know this? If that last paragraph is you... Shouldn't you know that you represent Jesus? Shouldn't you know that you should show fruits of the spirit with your children which includes patience? That Jesus once said that you commit murder with the anger in your heart? That God beautifully and wonderfully made you, and spending hours and hours preparing yourself for... the acceptance and impression on people isn't really glorifying God? He clothed the flowers in the fields, aren't you more important than that? Shouldn't you be working to help your family and not focused on selfish desires?

I have found through my walk that the practical testing of your faith... comes with extreme difficulty both mentally and emotionally. Yeah, I am not sugar coating this, it's tough and I struggle with it everyday.

One thing we learn from Hebrews though is that Jesus was perfected through his suffering. So if we're expecting to be sanctified, it won't be through comfort and mild annoyances - it will be through suffering.

Things will feel weird, but right. You'll know things will be right but will be terrible for you. You will likely gain and lose in many areas - hobbies, friends, time, jobs, and maybe even family. It's kind of crazy how this is supposed to change you.

Jesus expects everything - pick up your cross daily, deny yourself. He turned away people because they cared more about things, family, and tradition more than the kingdom of God.

Here's where I think people get confused; God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit - they don't magically come down and rip you away. No, they lead you. Sometimes (more often than not if I am being honest about my journey) they will lead you straight into suffering. That suffering cleanses you, teaches you, and forces you to change. The key word there is "lead," not "drag into." Sure, on occasion you'll enter a season like that, but for the most part, it's about the decisions you make.

Hence why we are free, and not just Holy slaves. We were blessed with free will.

You may have thought this section would be a nice list of things to guide you through life and how to challenge your faith comfortably and practically, eh? Well unfortunately it's not, and everyone's journey is different, but I can make you a list. Changing and following Jesus means...

• You will naturally make enemies based on what you believe.
• The "right" way (aka Jesus' way) often means you'll be uncomfortable or outcasted.
• Suffering is refinement and sanctification - if you want to change for the better, you'll need to face adversity, pain, and challenges.
• Your moral compass and values will change who you are, what you intake, and how you behave. People don't like that. Jobs don't like that. YOU won't like that. It isn't easy.
• Most of the things you need to do, will cost you something. The more you're willing to give up, the more God can work in you.

I've found that the atheist argument of "if God could've made us all perfect but didn't proves there is no God" is a very surface level thought, because it completely neglects the idea of free will, which at least to me is essential in understanding why love is even possible in the first place. You can be conditioned to care, but when I think deeper about it... you can't love without free will.

Which makes my next statement all that much harder to process; often Christians believe that unconditional love means no consequences. God and Jesus love you no matter what, so you can do whatever. Your sins are forgiven. No, that's not how it works. This is why I think the Bible, specifically the Old Testament compares the divine relationship to marriages and sex workers and such, because it is less a theology about unconditional love, and more about navigating love when you have free will.

If you have children or a wife, whom you love very much... do you spend your hard earned money and time for the neighbor's kids instead of yours? If you love your wife, do you spend all your time out in the wild looking for more love from other women? If you love your job, do you treat people there like garbage and constantly look for another job? If you love video games, are you going to spend all your time playing guitar instead? Of course not, that all sounds ridiculous.

So if you love Jesus, why do you spend all your time doing something other than following Him?

I've heard so many theological explanations for love in my journey, that just in my opinion miss the mark completely. Love isn't some magical "forgive it all" and do what you want kind of freedom focused thing; love is a deliberate choice you make that results in something very specific that may or may not be easily noticed. We can't really put a definition on love because of it's flexibility and varying application. However, it's real easy to spot love when it's there, and it's even more apparent when it's one sided.

This is often where I feel as a church body as a whole we fail. There are plenty of folks who understand and do it the right way, but often we encourage Sunday service and tell people to read their Bibles, and all sorts of stuff... but never really work to foster the relationship. Not the physical churches... no oftentimes they are doing that in droves all the time; small groups, Bible studies, missions, counseling, and all the things the church does to help, but what I am referring to... is us as people. Me, you, the neighbor, the folks that sit next to you every Sunday. THAT church body.

Those famous preachers like Billy Graham or more recent Anthony Phillip Mitchell, they don't preach to give you some divine encounter; they preach in hopes that you'll be moved by the Holy Spirit, God's power, or Jesus' story to change.

So free will doesn't equal love necessarily, but love cannot exist if you can't freely choose it. I could write several articles on this topic. Maybe I will, but for now just understand your free will does not give you freedom from consequence, it gives you an open door to accept an eternal invitation of love.

I think there's 3 main components here of the Christian walk that are the foundation of everything that will follow - belief, faith, and love.

Of course it's hard to convert anyone. If folks believe in no God, think the Bible is just a fictional book, and love is just a temporary bliss... there's not much you're going to do to change that. I'd argue also, that's not even your responsibility. You weren't commanded to convert and change folks; you were commanded to spread the word and disciple people.

How can you do that though if you aren't clearly in love and representing the Lord in everything that you do?

Which full circle comes back around to your foundation. If you are to be a light in the current times, what do you need? You need electricity (belief), you need a place to put a bulb (faith), and you need the bulb itself screwed in (love). These three things if you got this down, give you the power to be a vessel for God's glory. That's what changes people. That's what saves them. Not you; God. You just simply give a place for God to do His work.

If we were all just built to love God, knew nothing but God's goodness, and could not do anything else, there would be no love. It would simply be us existing to serve God, end of story. Free will gives us the ability to experience love... which I'd almost argue it's the entire point of life.

That leads me to the end here. I'll tie it up nice and neat for you.

When you believe, you understand what God and Jesus did for you. You understand how to learn about the nature of God, you study and learn from your life, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit on how to live and love.

When you have faith, that belief gets put into practice. You move according to God's will. You choose love over anger. You choose patience over immediate gratification. You move through suffering knowing that there's something on the other side.

When you love, you experience and share the greatness of it. You give it freely, accept it freely, and understand that it comes from God.

Let me break away for a minute here. I felt writing this article how deep I went into myself to pull out these words, and internally guided my soul felt in doing so. This section is more my own reflection on the article here.

Sure I wrote this to be public, in hopes that someone would read it and think... God can do the rest. It's not my place to save anyone, nor am I even capable. I have too many of my own struggles to do that! I mostly wrote this for me. I need to hear what's in the article. I need to apply my belief. I need to experience and share more love. I need to dive into the suffering, because I've been clearly told what's next.

If you've ever thought to yourself "what's my next step from God?" - then I encourage to ask yourself a simple question; what if I took a thing away? Maybe it's the job, a hobby, a collection, your family, computers, friends, etc. - whatever it is, if the thought of changing something in that area hurts like hell, then it's probably something that you're idolizing over God. Maybe it's not even intentional, but you are. You can unintentionally hurt folks, so you can do the same to God.

Anyway, I hope someone pulled value from this. Thanks!