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Changing Your Beliefs
We’ve talked about renewing the mind as changing our way of thinking. But we need to go a deeper level, and not only address changing our thoughts, but changing our beliefs.
Real transformation comes from changing our beliefs.
Our beliefs can be at different levels.
There are things that we acknowledge and affirm are true; if you ask us, we would say “yes, I believe that”. But some beliefs are at a surface, or purely intellectual level. These are things we believe in our heads, but not in our hearts; not quite or not fully. When I was in Bible school we used to call this “mental assent”.
So we want to talk about beliefs, and changing them.
Romans 10:6-10 6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above)
7 or, ” ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
If believing is done with the heart, we better get an idea of what the “heart” is.
To learn what the heart is, we are going to have to look at the structure of man.
Man in 3D
1 Thessalonians 5:23 23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Completely can be translated wholly (meaning all of you), and completely (meaning to the fullest extent). So we see that what consists of the “whole of a human being is three parts – spirit, soul, and body.
Basically, we are a trinity, even as God is a Trinity. We are created in His image.
We are like concentric circles, or spheres, with each level going in deeper.
We start with the outer level, which is the Body. Greek: soma. This is separates the “you” from the “not you”, the outside world.
At each level, there is an interface that communicates between the two levels. The interface between the Body and the outside world is our physical senses. We perceive and receive information about the outside world through our physical senses.
Soul. Greek: psuche, from whence comes the word psychology.
Mind, will, emotions. Even these come in layers.
The “outermost” layer, the one affected most by the physical realm, is our emotions.
Next comes our mind, or intellect. Our reasoning capability.
And the most inward is the will, wherein lies our ability to make decisions.
What is the interface between the body and the soul? The brain. What happens to the brain can affect your mind.
But, the brain is not the same thing as the mind. We can be separated from our bodies (death), yet our soul – and our mind – is still intact. In many ways being separated from the physical body frees us. The human body as it is on this earth has many frailties and limitations. But some day, we are going to get an upgrade! A resurrection body, like the Lord Jesus has now, that does not have limitations or frailties.
Spirit. Greek: pnuema. The innermost, deepest layer. John 4:24 God is a Spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.
The spirit is the core of a human being. Both the Greek word for spirit, pnuema, and the Hebrew word nephesh have the idea of breath or wind. When God breathed the breath of life into Adam, He breathed a part of Himself into man.
Genesis 2:7 KJV 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
What was formed from the dust? Man’s body.
The “breath of life” was the spirit that God breathed into man.
The result is that man became a living soul.
God’s plan for our sanctification: 1 Thessalonians 5:23, that our whole being – all parts of us – are redeemed.
When we are born again, it is our spirits that are re-created and made new, in the image of God. We are new creations in Christ. So that part of our sanctification is complete.
The soul is sanctified, or transformed, by the renewing of the mind. It is a lifelong process.
Our bodies will be sanctified or made whole at the resurrection.
What is the Heart?
The Bible uses that term all over the place, but we never get a solid definition. Because of that, there is a wide spread of ideas about it.
So first of all, we can rule out the physical heart in your chest that pumps blood. Even so we will use the gesture about not just believing something in your head (point at head) but in your heart (point at chest).
- The center or innermost part
- The essential or most vital part of something
- One’s innermost character, feelings, or inclinations
- The emotional or moral as opposed to the intellectual nature. Intuition
- Love or affection (he won her heart)
- Courage (don’t lose heart)
When we talk about the heart, we are talking about going deep. Not on the superficial or on the surface.
Let’s take a look at some of the things the Bible attributes to the heart.
Proverbs 4:23 AMP Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.
The heart is important and must be guarded! Just as the physical heart is vital, and pumps the blood which supports our life, the spiritual heart is also vital; out of it come the things that support and control your life. And the fact that it needs to be guarded means it is vulnerable.
Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
TEV: For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Is it possible for a Christian to have “evil” in their hearts? Apparently so, because the Bible warns us against it in Hebrews:
Hebrews 3:12-13 12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;
13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
The context is when the spies gave Israel the bad report and the whole nation started crying that they couldn’t do what God said and that He just wanted to kill them. So this is some serious unbelief and rebellion.
Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.
What is in your heart is what defines you.
Romans 10:9-10 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Belief and faith are functions of the heart. These are some of those “issues of life” Proverbs talks about.
Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
We all have things we enjoy or would like to have. But then we also have the desires of our heart – deep longings. God is interested in giving you those things.
Back to our graphic, we see that the interface between the soul and the spirit is the heart. I get this from Hebrews 4:12:
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Although I’ve drawn the boundaries as solid lines, it’s more like there is a smooth blending from one level to another (except at the Body / Outside World boundary). The heart is the boundary between soul and spirit, and contains characteristics of both.
One of the characteristics of the soul that overlaps with the spirit in the boundary of our heart is our will. This is where our deep commitments to our core values come from.
Feelings
The world equates the heart with emotions, telling you to “follow your heart”. Actually, that is good advice, but the Biblical heart is not just your emotions!
In some Christians circles we often downplay the role of our feelings and emotions – “You can’t be led by your feelings”. “I’m not moved by what I feel, I am moved by what I believe”. This is true, but this does not mean we should be like Mr. Spock and emotion should have no influence on us.
We are emotional beings. God created us that way, it is part of our nature. It is part of what makes us human. But, there are different levels of feelings. There is a shallow level that is influenced by just about everything – how you feel physically, the circumstances around you, the weather, how people treat you. And those emotions fluctuate wildly.
Then there is a deep level of emotion that is necessary for strong belief – passion. When you make life changing decisions, it will have deep emotion tied to it. That passion gives strength and endurance to the decision. It motivates us. How many of us, when we accepted Jesus, did it as a purely intellectual decision?
Another related word is compassion. Com – passion. It often says Jesus saw hurting people and was moved with compassion. This is not just pity or sympathy or feeling sorry for someone. Compassion is true empathy – you feel for the person as if their circumstance was yours, and it moves you to do something about it.
Passion and compassion are functions of the heart.
Another function of the heart is our conscience. This is our sense of what is right and wrong.
Believe from the Heart
So now that we have the heart defined, what does it mean to believe with or in our hearts?
It means a belief that comes from the core of our being.
I’ve heard it said “You can have faith in your heart with thoughts of doubt in your head”. That is true, thoughts are transitory. Just because you have a thought of doubt doesn’t mean you are a doubter.
Proverbs 23:7 doesn’t say “as a man thinks in his mind, so is he”; it says “as a man thinks in his heart so is he”. It is connected to the deep part of our soul, our will, and our spirits.
The real distinguishing characteristic between “head belief” and “heart belief”, is what will you act on, even under pressure? In James 2 he talks about the necessity of faith to have works, or a better way to say it is corresponding actions. Faith without corresponding actions is dead, inoperative, ineffective.
Beliefs you won’t act on are not core beliefs in your heart.
Strong decisions come from the heart.
2 Corinthians 9:7 7 So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.
There are some beliefs you have that cannot be shaken:
- Your belief that there is a God
- Your belief in the Lord Jesus who died for your sins
- Your belief that you are saved and heaven bound
These things are settled and established within us. We are persuaded by truth. We don’t have to expend effort to believe them, because they are a part of us. You couldn’t beat it out of us with a stick.
Our spirits, recreated in the image of God, bears witness to us of these things.
Things we believe in our hearts cannot be rooted out with arguments and reasonings.
“But how do you know”? You just know.
But, there are things that we are not established in. In fact, there are some places we believe lies – the strongholds we talked about. And the biggest lies we have to overcome in order to be transformed are in the realm of our identity
To Be Continued…
