Do You Have Head Belief or Heart Belief?
From my position in the medical community with an emphasis on treating Christians, I have come to the sad conclusion that most professing Christians believe with their heads but not with their hearts. They have mental beliefs but not heart belief. Their old man, worldly and carnal, is still on the throne. This explains why they bump along, suffering chronic emotional and physical problems. Their foundation is made of sand. Pastor Keith Moore calls them “the less blessed.” They go to church to receive teaching but seldom walk out what they have heard. As born-again children of God, they aren’t “not blessed,” just less blessed.
In light of the majesty and scope of God’s health-giving love, let me ask again the question I posed in the introduction: What do you really love? Do you find yourself thinking mostly about pleasures, possessions, and positions? If so, the love of the Father is not in you, according to 1 John 2:15–16. If we are not careful, we may join the ranks of the less blessed Moore talks about. God placed His love inside us when we were born again, and now it is up to us to walk in it. Will we yield to our feelings and behave selfishly, critically, and hatefully? Or will we walk in the selfless love of God that is inside of us? The choice is ours, and it makes all the difference in the world.
Many Christians are spiritual babies and filter most thoughts through the question “How does this benefit me?” Instead, we need to ask, “How does this affect my brother or sister?” We need to get out of Me-ville and start loving others with the selfless love of Jesus that is inside us. Jesus said a wise follower hears His words and puts them into practice like a man building a house and laying his foundation on the bedrock. Is your love deep enough to rest on the bedrock of Jesus’ love? If so, nothing can shake it—that’s the very definition of strength. The wind blows, the rain comes down, and the river rises and crashes against it, but strong love cannot be shaken by natural occurrences. It overcomes them because the bedrock is unshakable, and we are connected to it.
But if our love sits on the sand and does not touch bedrock, Jesus says we have no strength. We are actually disconnected from the love walk and all the power it offers. When the natural events of life come against us, our lives collapse, proving we were not actually resting on the foundation of Jesus’ selfless love. We may have touched it here and there with a selfless act, but our lives are not secure in it. It’s like a branch lying near the vine but disconnected from it. The branch will be dead even though it sits so close to that life-giving vine. That describes many Christian lives today: close to the vine, near the bedrock, but not connected to it in such a way as to draw strength from it. So, our love is worldly, not divine, and we receive no strengthening joy.
How do we make sure we stay on the love walk, attached to the rock, connected to the vine? Jesus said it plainly: “Keep my commandments” (John 14:15, KJV). Many Christians get worried because they have to keep the Ten Commandments; however, when you love one another, you have fulfilled all the law and the other commandments (Rom. 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14). When people sense strength seeping out of their lives, it’s often because they have drifted from obeying God’s commandments. Maybe they have a persistent bad attitude, overriding fear, anger, bitterness, or something else. This blotch on their behavior may reside in their blind spot, but the lack of strength indicates something is off.
How about you? If you feel weak, stressed, anxious, or depressed in mind, body, or emotions, it probably indicates you have departed from the love walk in some area of life. The Bible says, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (Eph. 6:10, KJV). The ultimate answer is to find where that departure is and secure it again to the Person and teachings of Jesus, the rock of our strength. As a doctor, I assure you that the best thing you can do for your health in all areas is to love like Jesus loves—selflessly, and with joy. That’s when you become unstoppable. Your confidence and strength are abundant, your joy overflowing. That’s the Christian life so many are missing because they only go halfway with God.
To learn more about Don Colbert, MD’s latest book, Dr. Colbert’s Spiritual Health Zone, visit Mycharismashop.com