By Janet L. Smith
© 2009 https://www.gardenministries.org
We believe what we WANT to believe so that we can DO what we WANT to DO.
In order to keep doing what we’re doing everyday, we have to believe in what we’re doing and believe in who we are as we are doing it.
If we believe that we are helpless to change our addiction to emotional pain, anger, and unforgiving bitterness toward those who have wronged us, then we will do what those powers compel us to do every day and justify our actions because we BELIEVE we are helpless to change them. If we will not forgive AND FORGET (hold no record of wrong in our heart-felt thoughts), and if we are not open to repairing a broken relationship, then we are choosing to stay in our emotional pain, anger, and unforgiving bitterness. We may think that we are helpless, but in fact, we are choosing to be helpless.
If we believe that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God and heirs to the kingdom of heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord, then we will act in accordance with that belief. We will believe that the power of Love and forgiveness will help us overcome our addiction to emotional pain, anger, and unforgiving bitterness toward God and toward those who have wronged us. We will be open to taking action to repair broken relationships. We will be willing to listen and learn. We will stop relating to people from a hurt and offended broken heart, and start relating to them from a place of compassion—knowing how deeply we are loved and cherished by the living God who has forgiven us as we forgive others.
If we believe both—that we are sons and daughters of God AND that we are helpless and addicted to emotional pain, anger, and unforgiving bitterness—then we are double-minded, unstable in all our ways.
Ask God for the wisdom to be single-minded and to fully believe in his outrageous love for you, and who he says you are. Keep asking until you finally believe his words. Then Do what you Believe.
James 1:5 The MESSAGE version “If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who ‘worry their prayers’ are like the wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
James 1:22-25 NIV “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
James 1:5 NIV “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord, he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”