Faith on Fire

The other day I was grilling. It made me think of belief and action. Our thoughts are like the charcoal. Our passion is like the fire. When you combine them together, you get true belief. Passion springs from the thoughts and transforms the world around them into something useful.

Too often, we just have cool ideas. Things we think we believe but we really don’t. We can tell when we truly believe something because the idea in our head starts changing the way we live.

We can see this in simple things. We actually believe water is good for us, so we drink it. You believe that the chair you are sitting in will hold you, so you sit there without worrying that you will crash to the ground. You believe reading this article is worthwhile or you wouldn’t be doing it (or maybe you are just wasting some time – thanks for taking time to read it either way). You believe lots of things, and those beliefs influence the way you live.

You also probably have a lot of things in your head that are just cool ideas. Those are thoughts that you might even think you believe, but if they aren’t changing the way you live, then you don’t really believe.

So when I’m talking about belief today, I’m not talking about intellectual propositions, thoughts we have, or the cool ideas in our head. I’m talking about true, genuine belief that fills us with such a passion that it influences the very way we interact with the world and one another.

The thing with beliefs is that everyone is trying to get us to believe what they believe. Sometimes the most adamant belief is that you shouldn’t influence others to believe what you believe. I find it ironic that some try to force us to believe that we shouldn’t try to influence others to believe what we believe.

The harrowing truth is that if we believe in the wrong things, those wrong beliefs will mess up our lives.

So we must be careful when we go to get what we believe. We should be vigilant and aware of the people and influences around us that are trying to get us to believe the wrong things. We need to develop a good routine to get what we believe. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Thomas, who gets the rap of being a doubter, gives us a good example on how to handle our doubts.

“Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” John 20:24-29 (ESV).

I think Thomas should have his name changed from Doubting Thomas to Verifying Thomas. Instead of letting his doubt creep in and destroy his beliefs, he went straight to the source and verified them. If you have questions on what you should believe, you should follow Thomas’ example and go to Jesus with your doubts. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean that you won’t have doubts; it means that you will head to him with your doubts and allow him to give you the answers.  

If we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, it will change us. It did for Thomas. Tradition has it that he died a martyr. Thomas the Apostle was killed by a spear in Mylapore, Madras, India in AD 72.

Is your belief changing you? Do you really believe?

Thoughts On God

Many people like firm policies and procedures. Many areas in life actually need them. This often translates into people imagining that God has firm policies and procedures, which leads to people developing destructive thoughts about God.

First, let’s get this out there. God’s goals never change. Who He is at the core of His being never changes. His attributes never change. But life here on earth is in a constant state of change, so the way He works and relates to us outside of Scripture is always in a state of flux. He does not operate with a policy and procedure manual; He operates through relationships with you, me, and everyone else in creation.

I have read stories of God healing an individual by having the sign of the cross done over them. Others have received healing through the laying on of hands. Still others just feel the presence of God during their quiet prayer time and receive healing. While others never receive the healing they greatly desire. God does not have a set procedure to receive His healing.

The same is true with knowing God. There is no set procedure. A devoted seeker of God will typically go to the Scriptures to learn about God, but God desires more than us just knowing about Him. He wants us to truly know Him. It’s the difference between me being able to tell you facts about Tim Tebow’s life. He was born in the Philippines to missionaries despite doctors recommending that he be aborted, was homeschooled, spent three summers as a missionary in the Philippines, was a high school standout in Florida, went on to become a college star with the Florida Gators, and now plays for the Denver Broncos. But that isn’t knowing Tim Tebow; that’s just me knowing facts about Tim Tebow. If I were able to tell you about that time that Tim and I tossed a football down on the beach while on vacation, went out to eat, and stayed up late talking about a variety of subjects, then that would be knowing Tim Tebow. (That’s just an illustration. I do not know Tim Tebow personally.) There is a difference between knowing about someone and really knowing them.

With all that said, I still don’t want to devalue knowing about God. The ideas that we know about God will influence how we pursue knowing God on a deeper level. If we think that God is uncaring because He let our loved one die, then that will influence how much we trust Him. If we think God is aloof and doesn’t really care about individual people, then that will influence how much we are willing to trust Him and do the bold and daring actions we are called to do. If we think that God isn’t gracious and merciful, that will influence the way we view our own sins and the sins of others.

The attributes that we believe God has or doesn’t have are integral to the way we actually live our lives.

I am heading to Liberia at the end of February to teach at a conference for church leaders and install safe water systems. In the process of writing these sessions, I am realizing how much I rely on knowing my audience when I prepare a message or a lesson. One of the lessons that I have been assigned to give is “Who is God?” In preparing that lesson, I am struck by the fact we must focus on who God is and His attributes. Deceptions are various and ever-changing, but the truth of God remains the same forever. We might learn a defense against the deceptions of today, but those defenses would be meaningless tomorrow when we are faced with new deceptions.

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32 ESV).

The truth will set us free. Deceptions will do the opposite; they will enslave us.

There is an episode of Mythbusters where they tested a myth that filtering low end vodka through Brita filters would produce top-shelf vodka. They filtered and re-filtered the vodka six times through the Brita filters and took a sample from each filtration. With eight samples (the low end, the six filtrations, and the top-shelf), they then brought in their taste testers. Kari, Mythbusters’ female co-host, totally blew the taste test when she ranked the top-shelf as the second worst and the low-end as the third best. Finally, they got around to Anthony Dias Blue, a vodka expert and the executive director of the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. When he lined up the drinks, he had it completely figured out. He had the order completely right from the low-end being the worst, through all of the various stages of filtration, to the best one being the top-shelf vodka.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that drinking vodka will get you closer to God. Like the vodka expert was to vodka, we need to be with God. If we really know who God is, we will not be deceived by all of the deceptions Satan uses to get us off track. We need to know Him so well that we will not fall prey to all of the tricks that can cause us to lose focus on God and live a wasted life.

Our thoughts about God influence the way we live. Proper thoughts about God, if truly believed, lead to proper living. Through proper living, we can get to really know God rather than just know about Him. Let us not be people tossed by every cultural wave and steered off course by every societal wind. Let us live the life we were destined to live, anchored in the beauty and majesty of who God really is.

A Thief, A Cute Princess Ring, and Our Trivialization of Jesus

Aria has a cute, princess toy ring that she loves. It's in a little box that she carries around. She carries it more than she wears it, but that's okay. She loves it.

The bad thing for Aria is that Eli realizes that she loves it. He has this tendency to take it away from her to get a rise out of her. On Wednesday, he was trying to take it away by squeezing her arm. He must figure that if he squeezed hard enough, she will drop it. Aria started crying and yelled, "Bad Eli." Eli, while still squeezing her arm and attempting to get the ring declared, "Aria, 'bad' is a mean word." He was right; we teach them not to call anyone "bad." But his actions were much worse than than Aria's words. Eli knows what is right, but he refused to do it while still keeping the moral high ground of teaching what is right. Although that is behavior that needs correction, it is pretty typical of a five year old.

It is very unbecoming of an adult. To teach the truth while not living it is not an action that God looks favorably on.

"Practice and observe whatever they [the Scribes and Pharisees] tell you— but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger" Matt 23:3-4 (ESV).

In 2006, Al Gore, at one of his three houses, a twenty room house with eight baths, consumed twenty times the amount of energy that an average American consumes.

In a 2007 interview between ABC news and the Tennessee Center for Policy Research's President, the center stated, "If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care. But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."

He jets around the world teaching us to take steps to curb our energy consumption and our carbon footprint. That's great. But like the Scribes and Pharisees, do as Al Gore teaches, not as he does.

Like Al Gore has done with his stance on environmentalism, we have this tendency to just want to intellectualize our faith and not allow it to change our lives. We lie to ourselves and say, "If we think the right thoughts, if we believe the right doctrine, if we have participated in the right religious rituals, then our life is right." That just is not the case. If our thoughts do not transform who we are at the core of our being, then we turn being imitators of Jesus into a sham of Bible Trivial Pursuit. It might be a fun game for some, but it will be empty of any fruit that God wants to bless those around us with.

Francis Schaeffer wrote:

“Ideas are the stock of the thought-world, and from the ideas burst forth all the external things—painting, music, building, the love and the hating of men in practice, and equally the results of loving God or rebellion against God in the external world….The preaching of the gospel is ideas, flaming ideas brought to men, as God has revealed them to us in Scripture. It is not a contentless experience internally received, but it is contentful ideas internally acted upon that make the difference. So when we state our doctrines, they must be ideas and not just phrases. We cannot use doctrines as though they were mechanical pieces to a puzzle. True doctrine is an idea revealed by God in the Bible and an idea that fits properly into the external world as it is, and as God made it, and to man as he is as God made him, and can be fed back through man’s body into his thought-world and there acted upon. The battle for man is centrally in the world of thought.”

In simpler words, "Thoughts, without corresponding actions, are worthless although they are usually necessary to produce those proper actions."

Let's not just say the right words; let's live the life God wants us to live.