What You Believe

Many of us can feel fairly confident that we have a pretty good chunk of good doctrine. We have the truth. We embrace the truth. We defend the truth. And that's all good. Those who "defend the truth" that is at odds with God's Word need help; we're happy to give it. Those who sin need help; we're happy to give it.

There is, I think, a nasty little breakdown, however, between possessing good, true doctrine and embracing it. In my opinion the church in America today suffers a lot from shallow theology -- they say, "A mile wide and an inch deep." They're being entertained, not fed. They're being soothed, not edified. All milk, no meat. But I think there is a worse problem. We aren't actually embracing the truth.

Let me explain what I mean. James wrote, "Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:21-22) That first part -- "receive with meekness the implanted word" -- is what I'm referring to when I say we have good doctrine. "Hearers only" is the part I'm calling a problem. We hear it. We get it. Good. But do we do it? Not so much.

We read "Bear one another's burdens" and we nod and say, "That's right; that's what we must do," so a fellow believer shares a burden and we say, in our most spiritual voice, "Oh, yeah, I'll pray for you," with just an echo of "Go in peace, be warmed and filled" because we might pray for them, but bear their burden? Probably not. No follow up. No "walk alongside." No checking up. Rubber, meet road. Doesn't happen. We read, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and we nod and say "Amen!" Do we do it? Jesus defined neighbor as anyone in your vicinity (Luke 10:29-37). The Samaritan in Jesus's illustration did things for his neighbor. Praying would be nice, but this guy expended energy, time, and money attempting to meet the man's needs. We give a head nod to "Love your neighbor" because we know that's right, but we don't seem to give it a ... heart nod. It doesn't seem to leave our brains and enter our actions.

Good doctrine is a good thing. Failing to live it, James says, is "deceiving yourselves." The fact is we will always act on what we actually believe. If our actions and attitudes do not reflect our doctrinal beliefs, that says something about what we actually believe. And it's not a good thing.