Christian faith is not so much a matter of what we think or believe as who we believe. The same is true of a person's overall world view — whether we are Christian believers or not.

All human beings share certain common challenges to knowledge and understanding. None of us are born into the world knowing more than the next person. All of us will learn most of what we know from other people until we reach an age where we can begin to use the tools we’ve been given through education to try and sort some things out for ourselves.

The same holds true for Christian believers. I don't think anyone should simply believe whatever a preacher or Bible teacher says. What kind of faith is that?

If we simply follow the ideas, traditions and arguments of other people then we are no different than the unbelievers who are trained (by the ways of this world) to swallow whatever their mentors, teachers, the media, and/or their peers have to say. Our faith must be rooted in something greater than even the most sincere ideas and beliefs of other people.

But we face a big problem. Human beings commonly have what almost amounts to a herd mentality. The pressure is always on to follow a crowd — either the mainstream crowd one of many offshoot “independent thinker’s” groups.

We human beings tend to shape our views (of both our own selves and of the universe, God, etc.) according to what we see and hear in other people.

The Lord Jesus (and later the apostles) faced great opposition for walking a path that did not fit with what other folks expected. Jesus simply and completely believed God and the Holy Scriptures. He allowed Himself to be directed by the very Spirit of God, regardless of what His followers, His family, His neighbors, or prominent religious and civic leaders thought.

Christians truly unafraid to think for themselves will have little trouble believing what God is saying to us in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit within bears faithful witness to the teachings of God as they are revealed in Scripture. There is little doubt as to what most of the words of the Bible are saying.

The difficulty for the church usually begins when believers allow themselves to be influenced or even intimidated by unbelievers (or so-called Christian skeptics) who reject the words of God.

If we're not careful, we may soon fall prey to a popular idea (a heavily propagated and therefore commonly accepted idea) that people who "think for themselves" cannot possibly believe what God says. A religious version of this same trap is created when a religious dogma/practice replaces the clear words of God in Scripture (see, for example, what Jesus says in chapter 7 of Mark).

Bible-believing Christians are expected (by God Himself) to live by faith. And whoever walks in the Spirit will have to choose, at times, to reject certain popular ideas and practices -- not only of the unbelieving world but also of popular religion.

Yet our difficulty is not caused by faith. After all, Christians are not the only ones who must live by faith.

All people on planet Earth live by faith in some system of ideas or another. Everyone believes something that they cannot (or simply haven't the time to) prove for themselves.

We all believe things about electricity, about gravity, about the universe, about health and success that others tell us. Not one of us can possibly test or prove all these things for ourselves. We would never get anything else done. So we choose to tentatively accept certain ideas and/or groups of people as generally trustworthy.

In addition, much of what human beings believe is based on what we feel and what we've experienced, as well as what we've heard or read from other people. None of us are totally unbiased or open-minded -- or free of the influence of others.

No human is free of all prejudice. That’s why we need God's supernatural help if we're to ever recognize and embrace the truth about what He has done for us in Jesus Christ.

The key to a simple and effective faith is to make sure we are exposing our hearts and minds to God’s own influence as much as possible. We must determine, first of all, that God's opinion matters more to us than the opinions of other people. We must side with the Lord.

We will become a much greater help and blessing to others by spending time alone with God, soaking up His good Presence and listening to what His Holy Spirit has to say. The Lord Jesus will not lead us astray if we're willing to follow Him and to be taught by Him.

God has given us His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He provides every true believer with His own Holy Spirit to indwell, seal us, and direct our steps. He has given us His own eternal Word in Scripture to train and instruct us.

All we have to do is determine to think for ourselves, to listen to what God is saying, and to following His good direction. This will not lead us to oppose the church (the Body of Christ) but to join with God's people everywhere in following our one true Shepherd: the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jim

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