"Believe in Yourself" ??

I often see Face Book posts that capsulize this generation's religion: “Believe in yourself.” “Your imagination creates your reality.” “If you can dream it, you can do it.” “Think and grow rich.”..etc.   It all sounds virtuous, but such optimistic buzzwords are really tentacles of an insidious veiled philosophy.

As the world's turmoil escalates, it's going to become shockingly clear that everything in life can be reduced to two incompatible realities: light or darkness, truth or deception, life or death, heaven or hell, Jesus Christ or evil. Accordingly, there are two sources of thoughts in the universe by which our innate ability to BELIEVE can operate: The wisdom from above or the wisdom from below, the Holy Spirit or the demonic. (1)

It's blindness to assume that all reality is unified, and therefore all spiritual powers represent God. “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” -  Or the “teachings handed down by human beings and from the ruling spirits of the universe.”(2)

To believe that you can initiate and empower your own destiny is an illusion. Humans are not autonomous. We are intrinsically dependent. “Do you not know, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (3) That's a universal Law. “You are not your own; you were bought with a price.” (4) Anyone not submitted to Jesus Christ is by default a legal slave of Satan, regardless of your elevated thoughts and wonderful life.

Jesus revealed that there are only two kinds of people on the planet: those who hear Him and those who won't. (5) Many assume that God will endorse their intentional and noble believing when in fact He may not. We see this at the infamous Tower of Babel where man's unified purpose, language and self confidence prompted God to reveal this astonishing fact: “Nothing shall be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.”(6) This stunning potential of focused imagination is an innate God given ability, but it can operate without God's sanction or power.

The saga of the Tower of Babel may seem infantile to our modern conceit, but its motive of self-exaltation is alive and well. "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.” (7) That is the delusional deification of man!

The seduction of human-potential principles is their ability to function without God, even in a “Christian” context. Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”(8) We can freely imagine and initiate, but without a literal interchange with Christ it's a malignant exercise. "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing.”(9) If Jesus in his humanity, restricted His thinking and believing to God's input, isn't that a model for us? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."(10) That's the key to true fulfillment and achievement!

Believing in yourself, quantum physics or the life force, is NOT Biblical faith. Even though all humans have a natural capacity for faith, the Bible says that not everyone actually has faith.(11) This is a vital distinction that many fail to grasp, and it's not just semantics. Trusting and believing are fundamental qualities of human nature. However, neither trusting nor believing is faith, they are actions. Faith is a noun, not some capricious leap in the dark initiated by our imagination.

The reason that not all have faith is that it's a divine virtue alien to corrupt flesh, and it must be imparted, because “in my flesh, dwells no good thing.” (12) The Bible describes faith as “substance” and “evidence.” (13) Faith has actual existence that transcends our three dimensional world. There is nothing comparable to faith. The Bible calls it a fruit of the Holy Spirit and a gift that is found only in Jesus Christ. (14) Believing is our mental response to faith. Trusting is our emotional response to faith. But without this divine gift of faith, my believing and trusting will automatically revert to some futile false security or bewitching power.

You were created to passionately participate in God's eternal love and creativity, and it can only happen by 'hearing' the word of God. (15) It's not merely a printed word on a page, but a spiritual exchange with the Living Word of God, that produces faith. “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”(16)

 

Footnotes:

1. James 3:15
2. Colossians 2:8 NIV and GNT
3. Romans 6:16
4. 1 Corinthians 6:19
5. Matthew 11:15, 13:9; Mark 4:9, 23 etc...
6. Genesis 11:6 KJV
7. Genesis 11:4
8. John 15:5
9. John 5:19
10. Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4
11. 2 Thessalonians 3:2 NIV
12. Romans 7:18
13. Hebrews 11:1 KJV
14. 1 Timothy 1:14; 2 Timothy 1:13; Galatians 2:20, 3:23-25, 5:22; Ephesians 2:8; 1 Peter 1:21 KJV
15. Romans 10:17 KJV
16. John 15:7 KJV

Copyright 2015 by Hayden Humphrey