Labor to Believe
From Pastor Kevin King
So many times, we try to change our behavior by trying to change our behavior. We recognize we need to do, or not do, and we try to make the change. This is how we are raised and taught; discipline and maximum effort. Discipline and effort are important, so I'm not trying to take away from them. But, God showed me something that could be thought of as a missing link. BELIEVING.
There’s a principle in the Kingdom of God that says God has already made us everything we will ever be or will ever be able to do. From this place, He then teaches us how to live these things out. Mainly, this involves believing that we are already who we are TRYING to become. It’s subtle. But we will only act like Jesus when we believe we have already been made like Jesus. This is why we are to walk by faith and not by sight. We are to believe that everything about our lives is ‘yea and amen,’ it’s finished, even when we can’t see the proof. God did all the heavy lifting, now we just have to believe it and live it. We should labor to believe, not labor to become. Once we believe it, we live it. Sure, it still takes effort to do what we believe, but believing keeps us going and persevering rather than give up. When we don’t believe, we end up thinking something along the lines of, ‘What’s the point? I can’t do this anyway. I’m wasting my time.’ We don’t believe we can be good husbands or wives, live holy, change crummy habits in our lives, etc.
Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 teach this principle of laboring to believe. Read them and note that near the end of chapter 4, the writer says that the Israelites did not enter into God’s rest because of unbelief. He continues by saying that we don’t want to end up in the same situation as them. Verse 10 says for us to enter into God’s rest, we must cease from our own works, trying to change our behavior. Verse 11 then urges us to labor to enter into that rest for fear that any man fall after the same example of unbelief (i.e., the same example of the Israelites not entering into rest because of unbelief). We enter into rest when we believe, we change when we believe, the angst of trying and trying disappears when we believe.
For example, we are already more than conquerors, but it doesn’t seem like it because we never seem to conquer anything. We may never make ourselves more than conquerors, no matter how hard we try. But because God has already made us more than conquerors, all we have to do is believe that, and we then start to live that. We must labor to believe that. We’ve spent our whole lives being everything except the image and likeness of Christ. Now, by the grace of God, we have been made like Him, and all we have to do to live like Him is believe. This is where the work comes in, not trying to become, but trying to believe. Put the effort into believing through seeking God, meditating, studying, and admitting hard things about yourself. This will bring about the changes we seek. Labor to believe, not to become.
