Getting Things Right - Part 2 | 01.16.13

As it was stated in the last installment of this blog series, the sin of unbelief is what WE MUST be delivered from.  And because the sin of unbelief looks GOD square in the face and calls Him a liar, it establishes a paradigm of thinking in an individual's mind to have absolutely no regard for GOD.  This is why it becomes imperative that our unbelief "gets right" FIRST.  The sin of unbelief is an internal condition of the heart characterized by the nonexistence of trust in GOD.  That inward condition of the soul then manifests itself outwardly through our bodies in the form of naturally rebellious behavior against GOD's standards for living.  This is why we must bypass the symptoms and diligently attend to uprooting the underlying cause for our rebellious nature.

It is characteristic of unbelievers to express apathy towards GOD because matters of importance to Him mean nothing to them: the unbeliever simply does not care.  As a human born after the flesh, the unbeliever has no sense of GOD-consciousness because the spirit man is dormant and the soul is completely ignorant of GOD's presence.  There's no desire in an unbeliever to "repent" (or, as that word literally means, "to think differently") because GOD has been completely written off by the decided unbeliever as a fraud. Therefore, let it be clearly understood that an individual can NEVER get to a place of ACTING (or behaving) differently until they FIRST begin to THINK differently.  It takes a deliberate change of mind concerning WHO GOD IS to enlighten people's understanding that their behavior is ungodly, let alone inspire any desire within people to change their way of life.  And once inspired, one most certainly can not be effective in changing their way of life without trusting GOD.

You see, believing that GOD raised Jesus from the dead is the foundation upon which our ability to trust GOD for anything else is built.  If we can't believe this one truth about GOD, then how can we trust Him for anything else?  Bible says (in Ephesians 2:8) that we are saved by grace through faith that's given to us by GOD.  Therefore, it takes faith to believe GOD is who He says He is.  I'm reminded of the acronym for "FAITH" that Bishop Fred A. Caldwell, Sr. uses: Forsaking All, I Trust Him.  Being a Christian is about letting go of the former things as well as our old ways of doing things to embrace a new culture, a new life and a new way of thinking.  But it all starts with believing, which requires repentance from the sin of unbelief.  We can never begin to trust GOD if we fail to believe Him.

TO BE CONTINUED...