Faith and Truth: what the mind believes, the heart follows
As I consider the costs involved with my 6 month internship overseas next summer, I become overwhelmed. The costs are soo far beyond what I am able to cover on my own. The need before me is not something I can muster up enough will power to meet.
My trust in the God I serve is being tested. Behaving as if I truly believed His promises is something I am being asked to do. And I am struggling. Doubt in my abilities can plague my thinking. Meditating on my limitations compared with the seemingly insurmountable need can create an anxious heart.
But, what is true? How does that truth affect the way I think and respond to life's seeming impossibilities? Are His promises just nice platitudes or do they actually hold weight when tested against human limitations and needs? Is my heavenly Father one who will keep His word or is He distant and uninterested? Does He come through every single time, or just some of the time? Does He care? Is He good all. of. the. time?
My head knows the answers to these questions. They have been drilled into me since childhood. But, what do I do when my heart is slow to believe them? How do I take what my mind accepts (sometimes seemingly only on a surface level) and work it, kneed it into the very flesh of my heart? I ask for the Spirit to do just that.
The heart and the feelings follow the mind and the thinking. What I think will ultimately govern how I live, behave. It may not always seem that way, but my thinking, what I truly believe, will determine how I act, regardless of how I may feel. A mind that is anchored in truth will lead and direct a wayward, stubborn, 'desperately sick' (Jeremiah 17:9) heart to follow that truth. One may think they are 'following their heart,' but that heart is ultimately responding to either truth or a lie.
2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us that our opponents' strongholds are lies. If they are our opponents, then we are at war. If their strongholds are lies, how are they defeated?
How do you defeat a lie?
With the truth.
We have been given truth as a divinely empowered weapon (2 Cor. 10:3-6; Eph. 6:12). We have been given the Holy Spirit who is in the process of transforming us and our thinking into the image of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18; Romans 12:2). He is renewing our minds. He strengthens us in proportion to His glorious might to wrestle against those lies! (Eph. 6:10). We have a Savior who is the source and author of the faith He requires for us follow Him in battle (Heb. 12:2; Heb. 11:6). "The battle is the LORD's' (Zech. 4:6).
He supplies the faith to believe the truth and the strength to live according to the truth, the faith to, 'destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." (2 Cor. 10:5).
My trust in the God I serve is being tested. Behaving as if I truly believed His promises is something I am being asked to do. And I am struggling. Doubt in my abilities can plague my thinking. Meditating on my limitations compared with the seemingly insurmountable need can create an anxious heart.
But, what is true? How does that truth affect the way I think and respond to life's seeming impossibilities? Are His promises just nice platitudes or do they actually hold weight when tested against human limitations and needs? Is my heavenly Father one who will keep His word or is He distant and uninterested? Does He come through every single time, or just some of the time? Does He care? Is He good all. of. the. time?
My head knows the answers to these questions. They have been drilled into me since childhood. But, what do I do when my heart is slow to believe them? How do I take what my mind accepts (sometimes seemingly only on a surface level) and work it, kneed it into the very flesh of my heart? I ask for the Spirit to do just that.
The heart and the feelings follow the mind and the thinking. What I think will ultimately govern how I live, behave. It may not always seem that way, but my thinking, what I truly believe, will determine how I act, regardless of how I may feel. A mind that is anchored in truth will lead and direct a wayward, stubborn, 'desperately sick' (Jeremiah 17:9) heart to follow that truth. One may think they are 'following their heart,' but that heart is ultimately responding to either truth or a lie.
2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us that our opponents' strongholds are lies. If they are our opponents, then we are at war. If their strongholds are lies, how are they defeated?
How do you defeat a lie?
With the truth.
We have been given truth as a divinely empowered weapon (2 Cor. 10:3-6; Eph. 6:12). We have been given the Holy Spirit who is in the process of transforming us and our thinking into the image of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18; Romans 12:2). He is renewing our minds. He strengthens us in proportion to His glorious might to wrestle against those lies! (Eph. 6:10). We have a Savior who is the source and author of the faith He requires for us follow Him in battle (Heb. 12:2; Heb. 11:6). "The battle is the LORD's' (Zech. 4:6).
He supplies the faith to believe the truth and the strength to live according to the truth, the faith to, 'destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." (2 Cor. 10:5).
Comments
Post a Comment