Understanding + God fosters changes in belief; actions will follow

OUR BELIEFS AND FEELINGS cannot be changed by choice. We cannot just choose to have different beliefs and feelings. But we do have some liberty to take in different ideas and information and to think about things in different ways. We can choose to take in the Word of God, and when we do that, beliefs and feelings will be steadily pulled in a godly direction. One of the worst mistakes that can be made in practical ministry is to think that people can choose to believe and feel differently. Following that, we will mistakenly try to generate faith by going through the will—possibly trying to move the will by playing on emotion. Rather, the will must be moved by insight into truth and reality. Such insight will evoke emotion appropriate to a new set of the will. That is the order of real inward change. My father was a two-pack-a-day smoker until he was in his seventies. Then one day, in the Veterans’ Hospital where he went for health care, he saw a man smoking with the aid of a special machine that enabled him to smoke even though his lips had been eaten away by cancer caused by smoking. He saw the foolishness of smoking, and he believed it. He never smoked another cigarette. That is what belief does, though merely professed belief does not. Belief is when your whole being is set to act as if something is so. And that is how the commands of Jesus finally come to us as we grow. We see them to be reality.

C. S. Lewis tells how one day he got into the sidecar of his brother’s motorcycle to travel a short distance. When he got in, he was an unbeliever still, though much had been happening in him. When he got out, he was a believer. He did not make this change. He discovered it after it had happened. Then he could “confess” it, and it held him, not he it.


So we do not, in general, control our beliefs or those of others. We never choose to believe, and we must not try to get ourselves or others to choose to believe. That is God’s work. We can try to understand and try to help others to understand. And beyond that—God must work. Once we understand this and stop trying to get people to choose to believe or to do things they really don’t believe, he will certainly work as we do our part. People will progressively learn to do the things Jesus commanded us. We will begin to see real changes in belief and emotion, and the actions will follow.
pp. 248-249, SOURCE

 

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