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blogging, discerning the spirits, disobedience, dying to self, experience, honesty, inspiration, killing sin, resisting temptation, sin, the cross, unbelief, writing
Walking in the Light as He is in the Light…
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)
It was not my intention to write a new blog post today and I hoped this would turn out a short one, but I thought I should share my recent experiences on the internet with you. In fact, I was simply searching for ANY other blog that deals with the cross of Christ on a personal basis. I truly wondered whether there might be a handful of such blogs nowadays. Here’s what I found out.
You can be sure that you will find countless blogs that deal with the cross of Christ on the basis of what He once did for us, i.e., that He saved us from our sins in general. But you will find less writings that tell you something about how His Cross might affect us in our personal lives today (I am speaking about killing sin in us through the Holy Spirit, for example). What amazed me. though, was the fact that I found a website, not a blog, where they shared some deep truth about the cross of Christ. But as I thought about copying and pasting an excerpt, alas, I could not find the author of this article. In order to find out the original text I did the following: I copied a longer and striking sentence and pasted it on Google Search.
What happened next? Searching for this particular sentence, confusion set in since I found this text with the same wording on several blogs, in a PDF, and on websites as well. And not only this sentence! It was almost always the same long text and, believe it or not, although some people mentioned the presumed author (a website, not a person), other people did as if that whole article or parts of it had been their own writing. This really saddened me because I wondered how many people who drop by and see the truth written on a site might be led to the conviction that the (false) author might really live a (holy) life where the cross of Christ reveals its effects daily. Indeed, deception always begins with a seemingly little lie in people’s eyes as they are tempted to think, ‘What many people do (on the net) can’t be thaaat wrong…’ Once we allow such thoughts and finally as we have given in to such temptations, our hearts get hardened over time and we cannot sense the wrong about sins committed by us and others, either. As the author of Hebrews tells us,
“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” (Heb 3:12-19 ESV)
I think ‘unbelief’ is often misunderstood as not being able to believe this or that fact about what is written or promised in the Bible. As these verses from Hebrews clarify, unbelief has to do with disobedience toward God’s voice that speaks to us TODAY. If we decide to neither listen to nor to obey Him, have we not sinned? Actually, continued sinning finally hardens our hearts so much that we cannot hear His voice clearly anymore.
Entering the Promised Land 
Susanne, you wrote,
“I think ‘unbelief’ is often misunderstood as not being able to believe this or that fact about what is written or promised in the Bible. As these verses from Hebrews clarify, unbelief has to do with disobedience toward God’s voice that speaks to us TODAY. If we decide to neither listen to nor to obey Him, have we not sinned? Actually, continued sinning finally hardens our hearts so much that we cannot hear His voice clearly anymore.”
You did a wonderful job of connecting unbelief with disobeying the voice of the Spirit in our daily lives for THIS is what Hebrews chapter three is talking about. How many of us calling ourselves “Christians” have hardened our hearts and failed to obey that voice and as a result have failed to enter into His rest?
This is a serious admonition that exposes the fallen state of Christendom where Christian belief systems are nothing more that a collection of doctrines or a “statement of faith” that a person mentally adheres to. The problem is that in the language of the Bible, “belief” means to put your whole life in the hands of the One in whom you believe and obeying Him no matter what the cost. We want Jesus as our Savior, but not as our Lord. It is the difference between the mob that wanted to make Jesus their king because He fed them, “loaves and fishes Christians” and the disciples who preached the gospel of Christ and laid down their lives for Him and loved not their lives unto death. The first group “believed” and rebelled where the second group believed and obeyed the voice of the Spirit daily as He led them. Christ is our example if we are really Christ’s followers.
“But [Jesus] made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil 2:7-8, KJ2000)
“If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.” (John 15:19-20, KJ2000)
Thanks for sharing this insight, dear Susanne. You have given me much to pray about as I search my own soul in these matters.
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Thanks so much for your encouraging words, dear Michael. You are welcome as to the sharing of my latest thoughts on this topic which had come out of nowhere, as it has often been the case. 😉
I love your deliberations on how we can rightly and wrongly believe in Christ, dependent on our reaction to His plans for our lives. As for me, I try to follow Jesus as best as I can, but He who knows my heart also knows about all my natural limitations to fully trust in Him as yet. Therefore I rather rely on His grace to save me from this life I do not love at all, this life that is still bound by my old nature’s worries, fears, doubts, and desires. How can anyone really love this life before having entered His rest? I truly don’t know… 🙄
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Sometimes I find myself saying, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)
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I cannot count how often I have prayed this already, Louise. Actually, I am still waiting on God to give me Jesus’ faith that moves mountains… if He wills.
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