Friday, April 27, 2012

Believing Lies

So a few days ago I read an old letter I had written to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association thanking them for a free book they sent to me entitled Believing God by Beth Moore.  If you’ve read my blog before you may remember me writing about this book.  I wouldn’t call myself a scholar by any stretch but I’ve read a number of Christian books over the years and this one is probably the only book that actually gives specific instruction about how to increase your faith, and it does so with results. I thought “I need to read this book again,” so I pulled it down of the shelf and began.
It’s been I think maybe almost 5 years since I last read it so it’s kinda of fresh to me again.  For some reason I feel compelled to write about what I’ve been learning . I haven’t felt this way in a while so I thought I should heed the call.  I may do this throughout the re-reading of this book so keep checking in on me, won’t you?
From the very first chapter I was challenged.  I realized that I had a core lie that was interfering with my belief in God and what He can accomplish in my life.  The idea of core lies comes from the e-book of the same title by Sarah Mae.  Basically a core lie is something we believe about ourselves that is untrue and contrary to the way God sees us.  Sarah states them as a bunch of “I ams”:  “I am bad,” “I am not good enough” and so on.  I realized that not only do we have lies about ourselves, but perhaps many or even all these lies have reciprocating lies about God. I won’t go into the very personal core lies of my own but for example you may have a core lie of “I am un-loveable.” If you believe you are un-loveable than you probably deep down have the lie embedded in you that God does not love you. You may just say to yourself “I am so un-loveable” but the lie about God is that “I am so un-loveable (that God could never love me).”  Of course, it can be refuted again and again in scripture that this is not true, and both authors and certainly myself will say that the best way to refute lies and build faith is by strapping on the belt of truth and arming yourself with the Sword of the Spirit, that is God’s Word.  So as I pondered this (that what I believe about myself is actually a lie about God), then I started to think differently about the situation.  I don’t want to believe lies about God.  I don’t want His word and His power to be nullified in my life because I am choosing to believe something that simply is not true.  While de-cluttering my book shelf yesterday, I found my printout of Core Lies, and sure enough right there at the bottom of the list of core lies that Sarah had compiled I had written own my core lie.  Not in exactly the same words that Beth described it but there it was “I am . . .”  But now I see it more than just a lie about myself; it’s a lie about God and that does not sit well with me.
So I’m putting on some armor, and lifting my sword and shield, and I’m excited to see what happens next!

Monday, April 23, 2012

On not living in the fullness of God’s promises

It’s like buying a house.  God has a house for you but you can’t afford the mortgage.  Jesus pays the mortgage for you, hands you the keys and tells you today is the day you can take possession.  And we hold the keys but never take possession.  We brag we own a house, after all Jesus gave it to us, but we never live in it.