What Do You Believe?

Everyone has things they believe and put their trust in. Over the centuries philosophers and thinkers have grouped various beliefs together to form what is called a worldview. There are such a variety of worldviews that the differences between them have caused much of the conflict we see in the world.  

There are religious worldviews such as the Christian worldview and that of the Muslim. There are Philosophical worldviews such Existentialism which teaches that everyone creates their own meaning or humanism which stresses that human welfare and the use of reason to solve humanities problems are all that is needed.  

There are also secular worldviews such as Atheism and Scientism which teaches that science is the only path to knowledge. A lot of people embraced this view during the pandemic. Then there are cultural worldviews such as postmodernism, which denies that there is any absolute truth, or relativism that claims truth and morality change with the culture.  

This only lists a few of the many different worldviews that are in competition with one another. Some are in complete opposition to each other, while others are complimentary.   

There is a lot that is thrown at a person in this modern age, and there are those who are actively trying to persuade as many as possible to believe the way they do on topics that they are passionate about. If you are one who hasn’t evaluated what is true and what is not, you can be an easy prey for those who want to pull you into their group. This is the way cult leaders work, and this is the way some politically minded individuals work to persuade others to follow them.  

The questions you need to ask yourself is what do you believe, and why do you believe it? 

Do you know what you believe? When I was in the process of becoming an ordained pastor, I took the time and wrote down my own doctrinal statement. It helped me define myself. It is probably something everyone should do at some point in their lives.  

What you believe affects how you live your life. You make your decisions based upon how you view yourself or what moral standards you hold yourself to. The problem today is too few know what they actually believe and become puppets to those that tell them what to believe.  

People hear something on the news or hear their professor at college teach them their own personal point of view, or some politician tells them something is a certain way, and people fall for it no matter how ridiculous it is from the truth. Too often, people don’t think for themselves anymore. They are lemmings being driven to the cliff.  

One of the smartest things my mother taught me was to check things out for myself. She would often say, “take everything with a bit of salt.” Her meaning was, don’t take anything that anyone tells you as the truth. Use your brain and check it out for yourself. If it is true, then hold onto it. If it is false, it doesn’t matter who told you, reject it. Hebrews 5:14, in the Bible encourages us to use our minds so that “by reason of use have their senses (are) exercised to discern both good and evil.” If you don’t know how to determine right and wrong, or good and evil, you are going to be destroyed by your failure to discern.  

Another thing to be considered is whether what you say you believe is really what you believe? It is one thing to say you believe in something, some principle or some moral view, but if you are doing something that is contrary to what you say you believe, do you really believe what you say you believe? 

This is something that you often see in a church and what gives church people a bad reputation. It is especially bad when the leaders of the church are caught doing something like being in an affair, or participating in a moral practice that is frowned on by the church after the leader stood up in front of the church denouncing what he himself was doing. People like this are often called hypocrites, which means stage play actors. People who play at being holy, but don’t really believe what they tell others they believe. They just want others to think they believe what they say. 

Lastly, is what you really believe, really true? It is one thing to sincerely believe something with your whole heart, but if what you believe in isn’t true, then you believe in a lie and are wasting your life following something false. Believing in something, no matter how sincerely, does not make it true. I once had another pastor tell me that two opposite views could both be true depending on the person believing the view. That is not logical. Either something is true or not. It can’t be both true and untrue at the same time. If two people disagree about something, then one of three things is true. The first person is wrong, or the second person is wrong, or both are wrong, and they are not asking the right questions. 

My encouragement to you is to do your own research. Figure out what you really believe. Figure out what is truth so deciding what to believe becomes easier. Think for yourselves. Don’t let others put things into your mind.  Do some soul searching to discover what is true and what is worth believing.