Belief - Chambers, Oswald
The only noble sense in which we can claim to believe a thing is when we ourselves are living in the inner spirit of that thing.
I have no right to say i believe in god unless i order my life as under his all-seeing eye.
I have no right to say i believe that Jesus is the son of god unless in my personal life i yield myself to that eternal spirit, free from all self-seeking, which became incarnate in Jesus.
I have no right to say that i believe in forgiveness as an attribute of god if in my own heart i cherish an unforgiving temper. The forgiveness of god is the test by which i myself am judged.
Belief is a wholesale committal, it means making things inevitable, cutting off every possible retreat. Belief is as irrevocable as bereavement (cf. 2 Samuel 12:2123).
Belief is the abandonment of all claim to merit. That is why it is so difficult to believe.
A believer is one whose whole being is based on the finished work of redemption.
It is easier to be true to our convictions than to Jesus Christ, because if we are going to be true to him our convictions will need to be altered.
Where we blunder is in trying to expound the cross doctrinally while refusing to do what Jesus told us to do, viz. , lift him up. And i, if i be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself ( john 12:32 rv).
We are not sent to specialise in doctrine, but to lift up jesus, and he will do the work of saving and sanctifying souls. When we become doctrine-mongers gods power is not known, only the passionateness of an individual appeal.
God has a way of bringing in facts which upset a mans doctrines if these stand in the way of god getting at his soul.
Doctrine is never the guide into christian experience; doctrine is the exposition of christian experience.
The further we get away from Jesus the more dogmatic we become over what we call our religious beliefs, while the nearer we live to Jesus the less we have of certitude and the more of confidence in him.
You cannot understand Jesus Christ unless you accept the new testament revelation of him, you must be biased for him before you can understand him. Beware of coming to Jesus with preconceived notions of your own, come relying on the holy spirit he shall glorify me, said jesus ( john 16:14). Once allow that Jesus Christ is all the new tes- tament proclaims him to be, and you are borne on irresistibly to believe that what he says about him- self is true. The most conspicuous thing in the new testa- ment is the supremacy given to our lord; to-day the supremacy is apt to be given to phases of the truth, to doctrines, and not to Jesus Christ. Truth is a person, not a proposition; if i pin my faith to a logical creed i will be disloyal to the lord Jesus.
The most fundamental heresies which split the christian church are those built on what Jesus Christ can do instead of on himself. Wreckage in spiritual experience always follows. Many a man spurns Jesus Christ in any phase other than that of his particular religious idea. Every partial truth has so much error in it that you can dispute it, but you cant dispute truth as it is in Jesus. Watch the things you say you cant believe, and then recall the things you accept without thinking, e. G. , your own existence. It is impossible to prove a fact, facts have to be swallowed and the man who swallows revelation facts is no more of a fool than the man who swallows common-sense facts on the evidence of his senses. Face facts, and play the sceptic with explanations.
The ever-learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth stage is the cause of all spiritual epidemics; we wont realise what god has revealed. You cant unveil truth when you like; when the unveiling comes, beware. That moment marks your going back or your going on. Truth is of the implicit order, you cant define truth, and yet every man is so constituted that at times his longing for truth is insatiable. It is not suf- ficient to remain with a longing for truth, because there is something at the basis of things which drives a man to the truth if he is honest. When a man says he cant believe, don’t argue with him on what he doesn’t believe but ask him what he does believe, and proceed from that point; disbelief as often arises from temperament as from sin. Every man believes in a good character, then refer to Jesus Christ as the best character in history
And ask him to believe that what he says is likely to be true (e. G. Luke 11:13; john 3:16), and get him to transact business on that. When once you come in contact with Jesus you are not conscious of any effort to believe in him.
If i believe the character of Jesus, am i living up to what i believe?
The danger of pietistic movements is that we are told what we must feel, and we cant get near god because we are so hopelessly dependent on pious attitudes, consequently what is seen is not the new testament stamp of saint, but the mixture of an insubordinate intellect along with an affected clining to Jesus with devotion. Whenever a holiness movement raises its head and begins to be conscious of its own holiness, it is liable to become an emissary of the devil, although it started with an emphasis on a neglected truth. We must continually take stock of what is ours in Christ Jesus because only in that way will we under- stand what god intends us to be. If you preach holiness, or sanctification, or divine healing, or the second coming, you are off the track because you de-centralise the truth. We have to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ, not on what he does. I am . . . The truth.
If i am going to know who Jesus is, i must obey him. The majority of us don’t know Jesus because we have not the remotest intention of obeying him. Our deadliest temptations are not so much those that destroy christian belief as those that corrupt and destroy the christian temper. The great paralysis of our heart is unbelief. Immediately i view anything as inevitable about any human being, i am an unbeliever. There is a difference between believing god and believing about him, you are always conscious of the latter, it makes you a prig. If by letting your beliefs go you get hold of god himself, let them go. Beware of worshiping Jesus as the son of god, and professing your faith in him as the saviour of the world, while you blaspheme him by the complete evidence in your daily life that he is powerless to do anything in and through you.
The greatest challenge to a christian is to believe Matthew 28:18all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. How many of us get into a panic when we are faced by physical desolation, by death, or war, injustice, poverty, disease? All these in all their force will never turn to panic the one who believes in the absolute sovereignty of his lord.