The topic of "Believing" is vast! It is a topic I am teaching soon. A tie-in to believing is the verse about the first and greatest commandment in Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ What keeps us from that? The culprit tends to be the mind.
I can love someone with all my heart, but at times, the trust isn't fully there. The lack of trust is in my mind. My young son can tell me a story and at times I find myself saying, "Is that the way it really happened?"
Throughout the scripture, God is persuading belief. He is making things happen, miraculous things happen in the least expected people and places. It's encountering the living God! Following big displays of His God-ness, He often has people do big things. Things they wouldn't have otherwise already done if they hadn't been moved to believe Him. Even Mary, who swiftly believed and was considered blessed for it, was visited and told by an angel what she would do. That's big persuasion.
There are still the stragglers. Saul was given the Kingship by God. He was also given God's Spirit upon him. It says in 1 Samuel 10:6-8 that the Spirit came upon him in great power and that God changed his heart. Following this, he was told what he was supposed to do.
Saul failed miserably in a variety of ways. Not seeing himself as God saw him, not believing what God told him, pride, asking others their thoughts instead of asking God His and flat out disobeying.
Even though Saul had the Spirit of God upon him, he did not walk in it. His heart was changed, but his mind was not. He didn't fully believe, trust or yield. Walking in the Spirit will guide us well. When we ignore it and walk in our own ways it will often lead us right into a corner.
The words came strong today during additional preparation time for this study, "Betray not your heart." So often our minds can betray our hearts. Living in the place of the LORD's heart and Spirit, there is peace. David, who was later made king by God, was said to be a man after God's own heart. I also felt the words, "Peace leads, guides and instructs. Fear, stress and worry are enemies to My ways."
When a word is pressed upon me that stands out, I usually look it up or do a little more research on it. I looked up the word "betray" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It is defined, "Be disloyal to (one's country, organization, or ideology) by acting in the interests of an enemy." Betray not your heart.
Joyce Meyer wrote an entire book called, "The Battlefield of the Mind." Negativity binds us from embracing the positive. Many people find peace in meditating. It is the clearing of the mind of negative thoughts and stress. Meditation isn't just an Eastern culture idea. David says in Psalm 119:15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. David knew the power of God and reminded himself over and over again Who God is and who he himself was in God. One of the times is in Psalm 118. It brought his mental state into one of joy and strength.
Believing is an action verb and it does take our effort to turn our thoughts to Him. As the scripture says in John 14:1 Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
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