Becoming what you believe

On my way to heaven, I stumbled upon this truth…true Christianity is becoming what you believe. Whether we like it or not, we are not the same as each day goes by. Sometimes we wish we could just be spectator in life’s unrelenting daily rush. We wish we could stand by the sideline or the fence and remain unaffected by the influences and activities of this world – immune from the pain, angst and disappointment of life. But we can’t. One way or the other, we change. This change comes in many forms. We may grow in many ways. As we age, we become wiser. Wielded by experiences, we become braver, more willing to take risk. With experiences and age comes deeper character. We change from the impetuousness of our youth to the judiciousness of adulthood. For the majority of us, we progress in life through learning from our mistakes and adapting to life’s circumstances.

For others, the change is not progress but sadly digress. They still change but it’s for the worse. They are scarred by bad experiences and stay bitter and vengeful. They take things too seriously and become deeply hurt and withdrawn. Others are emotionally betrayed and never learned to open up and trust another soul again. And for a handful of them, who wallow with a bruised self-esteem, they start their downward spiral into self-pity and depression. Allowing themselves to become victims of their circumstances, they die without ever recovering from the scars and pain of life, which are mostly self-imagined and self-inflicted.

As we change, we either evolve or devolve. We either better ourselves or belittle ourselves. No one can say that they remain the same as they age. So, in a word, we are essentially human becoming. As each day goes by, we are becoming. These changes can be very subtle and largely unnoticeable. But however stealth or nuanced the changes are, we cannot help but accept the fact that we are becoming.

Our becoming is influenced by two main factors. One is external, like the environment. Our place of work and working colleagues can exert a strong influence on us. The other is internal, that is, our beliefs. This is where our character and strength are molded, shaped and horned. We are the product of our beliefs. Our thoughts and actions are determined by our beliefs. What we believe will inevitably determine the choices we make today and who we will become tomorrow. This therefore brings me to this truth… true Christianity is becoming what you believe.

To an outsider, it is easy to identify those who are driven by their beliefs. Only one and one trait distinguishes them from the rest – they become what they believe. They are willing to give their life in sacrifice to their belief, not to mention their time and efforts. They are charged up, driven by and empowered to live a life fully dedicated to their beliefs and they become a living testimony of influence in the lives of others. Great men of God like Moses, King David, Paul the apostle and Peter the church planter extraordinaire are but some of the outstanding examples.

Each of these great men is as human as a human can get. They had their flaws and their crimes, except for Peter, would have turned the criminal penal code many times over. Moses was a murderer; he killed an Egyptian to seek justice for a Hebrew slave. King David too committed a murder by long distance remote control. He sent the husband of his lover and also a trusted military commander to the frontline to face his fate. Then comes Paul or Saul before his road to Damascus conversion. Paul, a Jew with a Roman citizenship and a Greek education, was sent to persecute fanatics of a new religion, now known as Christianity. He also stood by when Stephen, the first church martyr, was stoned to death. So, you can say that Paul had “murder” on his mind.

But regardless of their past and flaws, these great men of God still experienced life-transforming changes. They had their life-defining moments which changed their present and future forever. Moses spent his early years living as a prince. 40 years as a fugitive. And the last 40 years as a leader. His life-defining moment was at Mt Sinai when God appeared to him in a burning bush and gave him one of the briefest personal greetings in the Bible, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Exodus 3:14). It was a supernatural encounter that catapulted his divine career first as a thorn in Pharaoh’s side and later, as a liberator of God’s people.

King David had two life-defining moments. Both occasions involved matters of the heart. The first defining moment was when Prophet Samuel chose him. It was a choice based on young David’s heart, a heart which longed after God. The other occasion was when Prophet Nathan reprimanded him for sins of adultery and murder. King David accepted his punishment wholeheartedly due to a contrite and broken heart. On both occasions, King David experienced true transformation because it came directly from the heart. Had King David used his head knowledge to rationalize things, I believe he would have rejected Prophet Samuel’s election due to fear and Prophet Nathan’s correction due to pride.

For Paul, it was an experience along the road to Damascus which changed his life forever. His transformation came with a small price: Paul was blinded for three days by Jesus’ glorious light. I believe that Paul’s blindness served a life-defining purpose for him. God was preparing Paul to see things in a different light. God was changing Paul’s vision from seeing himself as a persecutor to becoming one of the persecuted, from a church destroyer to a church builder, and from a scourge of Christianity to a towering inspiration.

Peter’s transformation was by the lake. He was deeply touched by Jesus’ record catch, which broke the fishing nets. But the catch of the day, or that morning, was not the fishes but a life. Peter then experienced a heart transformation when he repented before Jesus, crying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” With foresight, Jesus replied to Peter, “Don’t be afraid, from now on you will catch men.” In Matthew 16:18, Jesus gave Peter one of the greatest compliments ever received by anyone in Jesus’ short ministry of 3 years, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

In life and death, all of these men above became what they had believed. Moses died a great leader. King David was revered for his Godly kingship in uniting God’s people as one nation. Paul became a martyr’s martyr and the founder of the grace awakening movement. And Peter became the rock upon which we as Christians stand. Their lives were not without controversy. But along life’s tough journey, they overcame. You can say that they lived a purpose-driven life. One that aims to become what they passionately believe in.

This is my message to you: Becoming what you believe. Undoubtedly, we are professing Christians. We are saved by a sincere prayer. We are baptized in a symbolic pool. We worship in a well-furnished, comfortable church. We are disciplined in the ways of the Bible. In other words, the conditions are already set for us to grow spiritually. But still, at times, we face difficulty becoming what we believe. Our Christian walk is anything but smooth. Sometimes, we are roller-coaster Christians. We allow our emotions to take us high, only to be lulled into a deep spiritual sleep after the sensation of the moment dissipates. We fall prey to distraction easily. We are too busy to commit to a life we know, in our hearts, to be much more rewarding than the earthly life we are now so heavily invested in. The irony is this, instead of becoming more and more of what we believe, we become less and less.

I see some of our lives as trying desperately to fill a leaking barrel. We jump from one sermon to another, from one church to another, from one experience to another. The initial feeling is one of sensation and excitement. But it dissipates fast like an unfastened balloon – the air leaks out quickly – or like a punctured tyre. I understand the futility of inflating a leaking tyre. My personal experience was frustrating. The tyre went flat after a short while. This analogy befits some of our spiritual lives. Some of us know more than others. We are able to quote scriptures, interpret and expound them, and preach a systematic sermon based on sound biblical principles. But our beliefs remain as head knowledge and nothing more. What we therefore need is a change of heart. Remember I told you that God is not interested in what we know, or how much we know, but how deep what we know goes.

Of course, there is no easy solution to becoming more like Christ and less like our old man. Each of us has to find our own way. But he or she who seeks, and earnestly seeks, shall surely find. It may take a while but God has a soft spot for a persistent spirit. So, the issue here is not about time, it is how much we really need it. If we make a commitment to commit, a desire to desire and a yearning to yearn, God doesn’t disappoint.

The good news is that becoming what we believe is a process. “Becoming” connotes a journey and not a destination. And the scripture puts this well, “the path of a righteous man is like the first light of dawn that shines ever so brightly until the full light of day.” Nothing takes your breath away more than to witness the dawning of the morning light. We all know that the eve of dawn is the darkest – some may even call it the creepiest and most depressing. That is what makes the rising sun so miraculously inspiring as it drives all darkness away inch by inch, acres by acres. But the sunlight does not burst out suddenly in a pyrotechnic display of firework. It unveils its glorious light slowly but surely. That’s what becoming is all about. We become what we believe in small baby steps but the progress is steadfast, resolute.

So, let Jesus take you on this journey. Remember His grace is sufficient for you. Some see grace as unmerited, undeserving favor or kindness shown to us by God. I see grace as the discovery of a renewed relationship with Jesus that would never fail. God’s grace is befriending a savior and you will never be alone again. Grace therefore stands for God’s-RACE; we belong to God affectionately and exclusively. Let His grace fill your heart and you will never go thirsty again. I guess no one describes, in ordinary poetic prose, the abundance of grace better than Kenneth Wuest when he penned the following,

“There is enough grace in God’s heart of love to save and keep saved for time and eternity, every sinner that ever has or ever will live, and then enough left over to save a million more universes full of sinners, were there such, and then some more.

There is enough grace available to give every saint constant victory over sin, and then some more. There is enough grace to meet and cope with all the sorrows, heartaches, difficulties, temptations, testings, and trials of human existence, and more added to that, God’s salvation is an oversize salvation.

It is shock proof, stain proof, unbreakable, all sufficient. It is equal to every emergency, for it flows from the heart of an infinite God freely bestowed and righteously given through the all-sufficient sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross. Salvation is all of grace. Trust God’s grace. It is superabounding grace.”

End of last year, I wrote a postscript to you and I find it an appropriate end to this letter to you…please take your time to read it,

“The measure of a life well-lived is how much we give and how much we forgive. The equation I see is one of additions and subtractions. Every time we give a part of ourselves, our time, our knowledge, our love and devotion, our resources, we add to life’s scorecard. Every time we take from others, their time, their resources, their attention, we subtract from it. We move forward by giving and forgiving; we regress by taking and begrudging. Nothing consumes our spirit more than to bear a grudge and to consciously nurture that grudge to full blown hatred. Unforgiveness retards our personal growth. Unforgiveness closes all doors once opened. Unforgiveness kills hope, saps strength and strangles love. Make every day counts by giving and forgiving. Be kinder, humbler and gentler. Imagine a world where lives’ scorecards are always positive; where giving and forgiving are the norm; where old scores are wiped clean and new lasting relationships are formed. A world like that has no room for racism, bigotry, arrogance, and misogyny (the hatred of women). This world is conceivable, achievable and sustainable. It demands only that we make small, daily and consistent efforts to add to our scorecard more than we subtract from it. For in the end, the more we lose ourselves, the more we gain in God. This noble and powerful truth is best expressed by Mother Theresa, “The prize with which God rewards our self-abandonment is Himself.”

(The challenge here is to read the above for a second time; but to do so as if you are hearing your own voice as a third person speaking directly and audibly to your spirit. Make the words come alive in your spirit. Vision yourself acting out the message that each sentence is trying to convey. If you repeat this long enough, the words will no longer be just words to you - it becomes life-changing principles).