Belief

Being as how Easter is almost here, and given that I’m probably going to have to try and explain this when my parents ask me to come to church with them and they’re going to want to know why I’m not going to, I figured I’d write a little something on belief.

According to polls, the vast majority of Americans consider themselves to either be “Christians” or “believe in God.” I find this rather amusing because the vast majority of American act nothing like what a Biblical “Christian” should.

I think this discrepancy may stem from people’s definition of what true “belief” is.

Many people tend to assume that belief is merely an intellectual thing. They think, “Oh, I believe that.” People say that they “believe” in God because they have heard an argument and have had things shown to them and they subliminally decide that they can buy it. They think that because they can swallow what they’ve been told and shown that they are now a believer, which I don’t think is a Biblical form of belief. They are more of an agreer than a believer. Yet agreeing with a set of facts (or supposed facts) doesn’t mean that you believe.

People tend to assume that belief is a state of mind. I think that true belief, especially when pertaining to God, is something that will completely guide a person’s life if it is real.

It’s very easy for a person to say that they believe in God, but the test of whether they truly believe or not is by looking at their actions.

One thing that people truly believe in is gravity. Gravity isn’t something that people think about and only believe in their head. Their concrete belief in the law of gravity, and their belief in what the consequences will be if they attempt to break that law, are what steer people throughout their lives and keep them from harm. This is what true belief will do-anything less is nothing more than saying empty words.

Church people love to talk about how loving and forgiving God is, yet there are many parts of the Bible they tend to ignore or overlook because they aren’t “pleasant” to think about and tend to make it a little harder to be a true “Christian” than just repeating a prayer and thinking that God is real. Things like God’s justice and judgment, his holiness (and the fact that he demands it from his followers), or how he also commands people to love him more than anything else including family or their own life (love meaning action, not just feelings).

If people honestly believed that the God of the Bible was real and that he really is who the Bible says he is, there would be a drastic change among American churchgoers and those who say they believe in God.

If people truly believed that God hates sin as much as the Bible says, and that he will punish those who continue in it, people in churches would have much less in common with us “heathens” than they do today. They wouldn’t swear like we do, they wouldn’t have the same divorce rate that we do, promiscuous sexual activity wouldn’t be as high as it is in churches, priests wouldn’t be molesting little kids, and so on and so forth.

If people honestly believed that Jesus was tortured and killed on their behalf, they would serve and follow him gratefully and without hesitation. If they honestly believed that the Bible is true (and if it really is and there was some power to back their belief), the American church wouldn’t be the spineless, fearful, whimpering fledgling that it is.

The reason that the American church is the way that it is, and why American Christians have very little “Godly” effect on the world, is because those who make it up (or profess to) don’t have a concrete belief. They aren’t convinced of what the Bible says or even what they profess to believe. Their “belief” is more honestly an “I hope so” instead of an “I know so.”

I once read a true story about a man in England who was convicted of brutally murdering some people. He was sentenced to death and while he was being lead to the gallows to be hung, a priest was walking alongside him reading from the Bible.

“What are you doing?” asked the condemned man.

“I’m reading you the comforts of religion,” was the reply from the priest.

The condemned man stopped in his tracks and looked the priest square in the eyes. “If I honestly believed that there is such a dreadful place as the hell which you Christians describe, I would crawl on my hands and knees on broken glass, over the whole of England, just to keep one soul from such a wretched place.”

The guards pulled the prisoner along and the priest stood their speechless. The priest watched as the man was led up the gallows and listened as the man cursed God with his dying breath.

The reason that the American church is such a joke is because of those who compose it. The reason that so many people wrongly think they’re going to heaven (the Bible says many will think that they’re going there, but many will be unpleasantly surprised when they die {Matthew 7:21-23}) is because American “Christians” are not the faithful witnesses that their Lord commanded them to be.

Anyhow, it isn’t very often that I get all preachy here, and even less often that I actually stick Bible verses in my entries (amazing that I do it at all since I’m quite heathen…), but I figured that since so many people think about “God” this time of year that it might be appropriate.

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“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
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Jesus Christ-Matthew 7:21-23