In the last Newsletter an effort was made to picture the belief systems of human beings. The two pictures were a web and then of a pile of wooden pegs. The bottom layer of pegs consisted of thick pegs and there were only four of them. On top of those pegs was a board and on that board were even more pegs with about eight. With each layer the pegs were more numerous until there were many pegs. Each peg represented a belief. On the top layer it is very easy to change a belief because it is not really attached to other beliefs and has no major impact on the belief system as a whole. The closer one got to the bottom the more difficult it becomes to change a belief or a peg because more and more of the other beliefs or pegs rest on and depend on those bottom pegs or beliefs.
The point is to picture what must happen in conversion and to use this as what may be happening in many churches. A truly converted person is one where the bottom pegs have been removed and replaced with core convictions about the true God in Christ. A person that prays a prayer and has a moral change of some sort may have many pegs removed and changed, but the bottom pegs are still the same. That person is not a new creature in Christ but is the same old person that has changed a few beliefs and a few things. Even if the person has changed many beliefs, the core beliefs or the beliefs that a person operates on are the same. People strongly resist having a core belief changed because all of life and love will have to change.
Let me use even another picture. The basic idea of this picture came from a book named Belief & Acceptance and was written by Jonathan Cohen who at the time was an Emeritus Fellow of the Queen’s College, Oxford. He is trying to show us that a person can have many beliefs but not all of the beliefs are accepted. In other words, human beings are those who constantly believe things and really don’t need to make choices about them. If I walk outside I will believe it is sunny or cloudy without even trying. It is virtually automatic and is simply how God has made people. But a belief that is accepted is one that takes root in the person and, biblically speaking, it is a governing factor of the heart. It is an operating principle of the soul. It is the most basic and foundational belief and love of the soul. All other things will be and are dominated by that belief and love.
Scripture teaches us that man can only have one master at a time and if he attempts to have two he will hate one and love the other (Mat 6:24). This teaches us that the heart of man is ruled by one dominant love at a time. We can have many beliefs that do not threaten or have much influence on our dominant love so they are in the belief system but they have no effect on other beliefs or life. However, to accept a core belief requires for that belief to fit with my chief love. If a belief does not fit with my chief love, then it will be rejected with many excuses while reasons will be found because it is actually hated. What Scripture calls a chief love Cohen refers to as a dominating thought. While he does not say that his beliefs were developed with or without Scripture, it certainly pictures Scripture. Unregenerate people are dead in their sins and trespasses and are governed by a love for self and a hatred for God. The regenerate person is one that is controlled and constrained by the love of Christ. When a belief comes in to a person that threatens the chief love which is the dominating belief, the dominating belief will dominate all other things and will find some reason to get rid of all other beliefs. What we love the most will dominate all of our other beliefs and will find excuses or reasons to hang on to our real and chief love.
Now, let us look at a church in light of these analogies or pictures. A church is not an organization or a business, but it is the body of Jesus Christ. No matter the organizational structure the real church consists of those people who are united to Jesus Christ and He is united to them. The true believer has Christ as his or her life and all else will be dominated by the life of Christ and love for Christ in the soul. The unbeliever, regardless of how religious s/he is will have all beliefs dominated by a love for him or herself and hatred (though not necessarily recognized as such) for the true God. A church cannot have true peace or true unity as long as there are people in leadership without a true love for Christ that dominates all the other beliefs. A church cannot have true peace or unity as long as there are several people whose beliefs are dominated by a love for things and people other than Christ. What happens is that some of the people have a basic or core belief of love for Christ that dominates all other beliefs while another group has a basic or core belief that has a love for things that is hatred for Christ. Another option is all the people have a basic or core belief that leads them to hate Christ and spiritual things. As long as their chief loves do not conflict too much, they can get along fine. Surely this makes it obvious why evangelism must be biblical and it must look to seeing people become new creatures in Christ before they join the church.
For a church to seek true revival which is the life of God in the church through Christ, it must begin to seek God for a sight of its core and dominating beliefs and loves in order to seek the Lord in truth. If the dominating love of a person is not God, then all the religious things that a person does is not out of love for God but a love for self. If the dominating love is self, then a person will do all out of love for self. II Timothy 3 show this: “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” The modern professing church is full of things like this. These things are accepted in the professing church today and if not many of these things are easily hidden. They can even be baptized with verses of Scripture. But despite their religious outside, those things do not come from love for Christ.
When the church has people that are lovers of self, those people are dominated by a love for self and so the things of the church and of God are dominated by self. All the things that this person does are done from a dominating love for self rather than a love for Christ. There can be many things that can be opposed in the church and in committees that is a love of money in disguise. But whatever is done is dominated by a love for money rather than a love for Christ. A professing church that has many or even but a few lovers of self in the midst is a church that has a lot of squabbles and a lot of tension going on in some way. What many churches need is for many of the members to be converted so that the church as a whole can seek God in the unity of truth and love.
The results that we are seeing in the churches in the United States that come from a lack of true, biblical evangelism and discipleship is truly a massive departure from Christianity. The Pharisees were incredibly religious. They read their Bibles, memorized a lot, and they did a lot of something they called prayer. But their dominating belief still came from love for self displayed in doing what they did for the honor they obtained from others. A love of self as the dominating love is not inconsistent with a lot of Bible studies, prayer meetings, orthodoxy, and socially good works. If our evangelism only gets people to pray a prayer and our discipleship consists of getting people to doing religious things and outwardly good things, we have failed miserably. What must happen is for the beliefs that are pictured by the very bottom pegs or the belief that must dominate everything else and that must be Christ Himself.
It is not inconsistent with a dominating love of self rather than for Christ for people to desire some form of revival or desire for God to move. A dominating love for self can still desire to be part of a church which increases in numbers. But for true revival to happen and for God to come down, people must begin to seek the Lord for broken hearts and to be broken from all of their dominating loves and beliefs that are not of Christ Himself. When Scripture speaks of a belief in Jesus Christ, it is not speaking of a belief on the upper or even the middle tiers of pegs. It is speaking of the deepest belief and convictions of the soul. It is speaking of a belief that dominates all other beliefs and all other loves. Throughout the Gospel of John many people came to some sort of belief or faith in Christ. Very few of those people were actually converted. The rest went away when the hard teachings came from the mouth of Jesus. What happened to all of those that believed? They believed when it was convenient to believe or when the sight of a miracle made them believe something about Him. Others believed when He gave them free food. But their root beliefs and dominating loves were never changed. So when a tough teaching of Jesus came and certain demands were made upon them, their dominating love of self overcame any belief they had in Jesus. So they walked away.
In America we have many positive messages about what Jesus will do for people. Many hear that and believe in some way. In other words, the churches are being filled with people who are like those who believed in the time of Christ but fell away when the hard teachings come. So if they are in a church where there are no hard teachings or spiritual demands made upon them, they can continue in their delusion and religious practice while their dominating belief and love is self rather than Christ. II Chronicles 7:14 tells us to humble ourselves (emptied of self), pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways. As long as people are dominated by a love for self, they are full of self and so are not humbled. When they are full of self their prayers are to self rather than God and they seek themselves rather than His face. If they are full of self, all that they do will be wicked because of seeking self in all. If the dominating love is not changed, there will be judgment rather than true reformation and revival.
God Loves... Himself 
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