Heartfelt Beliefs

Heartfelt Beliefs

You must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. Mark 11:23

THE HUMAN SOUL IS A COMPLEX MYSTERY. We have the ability to think one thing and feel another, have internal debates, be double-minded or half-hearted, change convictions, ride a wave of emotions, and second-guess just about everything. God knows this, of course; he created this complex mystery. But the fact that our minds and hearts are steeped in fallen nature and unable to fix themselves presents certain problems in the area of faith—namely, what does it really mean to believe? Is it an intellectual conviction, an emotion, a spiritual issue, or some combination thereof? If faith is the currency of God’s Kingdom, this is something we really need to know.

Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your perspective—we’ll probably never know all the mechanics of faith. But we don’t have to. We simply need to learn to believe with everything in us. Jesus indicated as much when he gave the disciples very emphatic and strong promises about having faith, speaking to mountains, and praying with the expectation of receiving. In the midst of those extravagant promises, he issued a very revealing warning: We must really believe it will happen and not doubt in our hearts. In other words, we need to align all of the arenas of belief when we pray.

Most of us have had the experience, probably very often, of believing God for something in our minds while not quite sensing in our hearts that it’s going to happen. That’s not pure faith. The standard advice is to ignore those feelings and bank on what we know to be true, but that’s not what Jesus said. He didn’t tell the heart to be quiet. He didn’t instruct us to set it aside as irrelevant. He told us to get rid of our doubts even there. Pushing our feelings away isn’t enough. Our hearts need to align with the rest of us.

Only God can help us do that. Both our minds and our hearts—neither has proven very reliable—need to be brought under the influence of the Holy Spirit within us. Pray until that innermost place is transformed, and see what God does. Undivided faith is a powerful thing in the hands of God.

Only that prayer which comes from our heart can get to God’s heart.