RELIGION

Life and belief by David Bethel

&NewLine;<p><em><strong>At this pernicious time when COVID-19 has upturned global socio-economic settings&comma; David Bethel&comma; an inspirational speaker and writer&comma; contextualizes BELIEF in a book titled The Believe System<&sol;strong><&sol;em><strong> <em>through biblical arithmetic<&sol;em><&sol;strong>&period; <em>I<strong>n this piece&comma; made available to OpenLife&comma; he dwells on the subject of belief&comma; righteousness as ecclesiastic pathways to everlasting joy&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;No one can believe on your behalf just as no one else can have faith on your behalf&comma;” he says<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Human beings have always been looking for what to believe in&period; It is a default errand for every person on earth&period; You need not to necessarily agree to this and that will still amount to what I just said&period; Your belief in not believing in things you either don’t know you believe in or your attention has not yet been drawn to – does not mean you don’t have beliefs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>As a human being&comma; you have had to&comma; at some point&comma; believe in what you eat&comma; what you drink&comma; the things you say&comma; what you associate with today etc&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Moreover&comma; you not believing in something is actually a form of expression of believe called disbelief&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>We do this all the time&comma; understand our words and then make our case from there – and this is to give us a clear sense of direction&period; To&nbsp&semi;believe&nbsp&semi;&lpar;Verb&rpar; in simple terms is to accept that &lpar;something&rpar; is true&comma; especially without proof&period; This simply means that you will not have to tangibly access what you believe in to form a belief&period; What is a&nbsp&semi;Belief&lpar;Noun&rpar;&quest; An acceptance that something exists or is true&comma; especially one without proof&period; The main difference between these two words apart from the way they are been spelt is also that&comma; the former is a verb and the latter is a noun&period; This means you form beliefs after out of beliefs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>It is important at this point to clarify the difference between to&nbsp&semi;believe&nbsp&semi;and to&nbsp&semi;know&period; Mostly you tend to know things by virtue of the fact that you have proofs for them&period; Whenever you tend to claim knowing something you have no proof for&comma; you are likely to be called a liar&period; Stephen tells Doris he knows David’s house&period; Doris in trying to be sure&comma; asks Stephen for major landmarks to David’s house&comma; and all Stephen had&comma; as information to help Doris was the GPS address to the place&period; Doris then decides to reach David for the landmarks she needs and David graciously gives her enough information to satisfy her quest including colours of his house&comma; his gate&comma; etc&period; David in this scenario knows what he is saying because he has proofs&comma; and yes&comma; Stephen necessarily may not be telling a lie&comma; but he is placing a belief in the GPS service to take him to David’s house&period; Now&comma; should the GPS take Stephen to David’s house just for the first time – he will now know David’s house&period; Why&quest; He now has a proof to David’s house&period; I hope this helps&period; I recommend you read this paragraph again to be clear on this illustration&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Why then is the believe system important in our lives as human beings&quest; My answer is simple&semi;&nbsp&semi;it is because you are always living your life around beliefs&period;&nbsp&semi;Living in the&nbsp&semi;known is something that would have been a superb place for human existence if we all were fully in the knowing of everything that will be happening in our lives from time to time&period; You plan and know what to eat tomorrow morning but&comma; you are not likely to tell whether you will be in better condition to even eat what you planned to eat the day before&period; The least of the things that can happen to you is to lose appetite for what you planned to it&period; Therefore&comma; you do not have a full knowing around your own lives as far as the future is concerned&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Let us climb a step further on this&period; There is also a line between believing and obeying on some tangents&period; Let me say that you need not to be forced to believe in anything&period; You can be&nbsp&semi;convinced&nbsp&semi;or&nbsp&semi;persuaded&nbsp&semi;to believe in something but when you are&nbsp&semi;forced&nbsp&semi;to&nbsp&semi;believe&nbsp&semi;– it moves from believing to&nbsp&semi;obedience&period; What I am saying is that you can be obeying something you do not necessarily believe in based on the condition under which you find yourself&period; You could find yourself obeying the laws of a particular society&comma; hold it in high esteem and not believe in them&period; It is getting interesting I guess&period; So can you now calmly remind yourself on some things you obey but not believe&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Why should we pay attention to the things we believe in&quest; Because they have the ability to&nbsp&semi;destroy or build us&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Our beliefs harmonise with our minds &lpar;strongholds&rpar; and conditions our hearts to behave towards a certain direction&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2020&sol;04&sol;Shalom-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" class&equals;"wp-image-2912"&sol;><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Can you just imagine you have believed in falsehood all this time&quest; That is why some people can go mad after they realised that the love they believed in were false&period; Thank God&comma; if the sort of broken heart you had made you put sugar in your soup instead of salt&comma; others lost their minds&period; Why&quest; The intensity of their belief in love or whatever it was&comma; was that high and they thought they fully knew what they were involved in&period; What you believe in has gained predominance in your heart and mind&comma; otherwise you have not believed yet&period; You always move by your thoughts &lpar;instincts&comma; cognition&comma; perception – refer to my article on perception –and that is the residence of your believes and also your knowing&period; And so you see&comma; this is critical because it begins from a place of believing&period; How long you believe in something is dependent on how much you know about it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This brings me to my last point&comma; which I will compliment with my personal illustration in concluding this piece&period; Dear you&comma; believing in something should always be a starting point and not a permanent place until you have known as much as possible about what or in what you believe in – you are just hanging on bombs&comma; waiting for the day of explosion&semi; or&comma; you could be at two steps away from walking on pure gold&period; So why the wait&quest; Why sit and just believe&quest; Get to know what it is&period; Dig deeper&period; Clear you doubts by moving beyond your questions to a place of gaining answers&period; For every that is subject to change&comma; you need to condition yourself to be always abreast with the latest and for others that are permanent&comma; you shoot yourself in the foot by just remaining at the place believe zoom into that arena of knowing which produces confidence – Faith if you want to call it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Someone will say&nbsp&semi;faith&nbsp&semi;is not seen and so how different is that from believing&quest; My answer is simple&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Faith does not hang on emptiness&period; Faith is dependent on an end&comma; grown over a period of fuelling your beliefs with&comma; that has overtime been proven on several occasions&period; Therefore&comma; Faith is an aggregation of hope&comma; beliefs and trust to an unfailing source&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The place of trust can be broken&comma; hope could be deferred dependent on happenings but Faith does not fail&period; Faith can take no as answer&period; Faith can accept the worse in place of humanly pleasing results&period; That is why Faith is directed towards in God and God figures&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>I am a Christian&period; I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour by first believing in the Salvation message that was witnessed to me&period; Why did I have to believe&quest; Because I would not know until I was told or read about it&period; Now I believe I will not perish according to John 3&colon;16&period; But even before he got to the 16th verse of the chapter&comma; He made this remarkable statement to Nicodemus a teacher of the Law &lpar;Israelites&rpar; when he asked Jesus on why He mentioned one ought to be born of the Spirit and Water&comma; he cannot enter the Kingdom of God &lpar;John 3&colon;5-8&rpar;&period; Jesus answered him and said&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;You are Israel’s teacher&comma;” said Jesus&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;and do you not understand these things&quest; &nbsp&semi;Very truly I tell you&comma; we speak of what we KNOW&comma; and we testify to what we have SEEN&comma; but still you people do not accept our testimony &lpar;John 3&colon;11&rpar;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Kindly pay attention to Jesus’ remark on the word know in the scripture above&period; For a better understanding&comma; take your time read the first three chapters of the book of John&semi; this will be leading you to a place of knowing and not just believing&period; For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God&period; &lpar;Rom 10&colon;17&rpar;&period; Now look at this scripture below&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God&semi; that ye may know that ye have eternal life&comma; and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God &lpar;1 John 5&colon;13&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The scripture above sets a good understanding&period; The Apostle John was writing to people who have believed and he admonishes them to come to the place of knowing&period; Therefore&comma; before becoming a Christian&comma; I had to believe and now I do not just believe I am a Christian&comma; I know I am a Christian&period; Why&quest; I have enough evidence in both Scripture and practical life that serve as proof to what I profess and that makes me belong to the CHRISTIAN FAITH&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Remember no one can believe on your behalf just as no one else can have faith on your behalf&period; Shalom&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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