BASIC BIBLE DOCTRINE

Essential Tools for Christian Growth

Lesson Four

After the Honeymoon

by John McReynolds

There’s a honeymoon in the Christian life—at least from the believer’s perspective. And like other honeymoons it tends to wane all too quickly. When a person first accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior and becomes a believer, after the first flush of “salvation euphoria” is over, he notices a problem. He still sins. He still experiences the same frustrations and difficulties of life that he did before he was saved—in fact, he often finds that his problems are intensified.

BASIC BIBLE DOCTRINE

Essential Tools for Christian Growth

Lesson Four

After the Honeymoon

By John McReynolds

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. So says our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John 4:24. We worship in truth when we study the Bible—the truth of the Word of God—we are really worshipping God. We worship in spirit by making sure we are in fellowship with God. We ensure that we are in fellowship with him by making sure there is no unconfessed sin in our lives. And we do that by claiming the promise of 1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sin He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So let’s take a moment before our study to do just that. Let us pray …

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father for another opportunity in grace to take in your marvelous Word. We pray that the Holy Spirit will take these things and make them a source of blessing and growth in our lives that we might be built up and that Christ might be glorified—for we ask it in His holy name, amen.

When the Honeymoon is Over

In this nation whenever we elect a new president there is always a period of time during which he enjoys a flush of popularity that is usually greater than at any other time in his presidency. This called the honeymoon. Of course, not everyone is enamored with the new president and the length and intensity of the honeymoon varies greatly—as we have seen in recent months—but there is still something of a honeymoon, even if it is only with the constituency that elected him. There are honeymoons in many other new associations as well—when people get new jobs, new friends, join new churches—and of course there is that association that originally gave rise to the word honeymoon: marriage.

There’s normally a honeymoon in the Christian life too—at least from the believer’s perspective. And like other honeymoons it tends to wane all too quickly. When a person first accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior and becomes a believer, after the first flush of “salvation euphoria” is over, he notices a problem. He still sins. He still experiences the same frustrations and difficulties of life that he did before he was saved—in fact, he often finds that his problems are intensified.

This can be a source of disillusion for the new Christian because often the well-meaning believer who led him to the Lord gave him the impression that once he believed in Christ his problems would be over. Not only does experience show us that nothing could be farther from the truth, but the very existence of the Scriptures is a testimony to the fact that Man’s problems are not over the moment he believes. God left us with His word the Bible to instruct us in how to live the Christian life, among other things. If after we were saved we didn’t have problems and difficulties, we wouldn’t need the Scriptures!

Often when a new believer goes through this stage his disillusion is so great that he concludes that “this Jesus stuff just doesn’t work for me”, or “maybe I’m not really saved.” This is the primary reason that new believers need to immediately begin a diet of spiritual food—daily time in the Scriptures—and to find a local church that teaches the Bible so that he can begin to grow spiritually and so that he can be encouraged and mentored by other believers that have been in the faith for a while. One of the primary goals of the local church for the new believer is—or should be—to get him or her functioning in basic techniques of spirituality that will support spiritual growth to maturity.

One of the greatest challenges for new believers is reacting properly to difficulties and adversity. As new believers we are used to dealing with adversity by attempting to bring our own solutions to bear on the problem—to meet it with our strength or try to defeat it with our intellect. But after we are saved we are called by God to a life of faith. Romans 1:17 says, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written [in the Old Testament—Habakkuk 2:4], ‘but the righteous man shall live by faith.’” When we are faced with difficulties God requires that we act in a way that is totally contrary not only to our natural inclination, but that flies in the face of what the world calls “common sense.” That means when we encounter difficulties and problems in life we are to meet them with faith—which is very difficult for most folks to do.

The Difference between Subjectivity and Objectivity

It reminds me of the fellow who was climbing a mountain alone one day. He slipped and fell, and all his equipment failed him. He managed to catch on to a small tree—little more than a branch—which was growing out of a crevice in the cliff. As he hung there considering his predicament the branch began to crack. If it broke, he knew he would be facing a fall of several hundred feet, and certain death.

So being desperate, he called out, “Help! Is anyone up there?”

An answer came back, “Yes, my son, I am the Lord God. I can save you.”

“Lord, if you’ll get me out of this jam, I’ll serve You the rest of my life!”

“All right My son, I will save you if you will trust Me. Will you trust Me?”

“Oh yes Lord, I will!” the man replied.

“Good. Let go of the branch.”

“Excuse me???”

“I said, let go of the branch.”

The man paused for a moment and then called out, “Help! Is anyone else up there?”

The point is, putting our trust in God isn’t natural. It’s not something we can do in our own strength. God the Holy Spirit gives us the power to believe God’s promises, but we have to do the believing. So right from the get-go God expects us to start meeting life with faith. But God never just requires us to do something without giving us the means to do it.

Allow me to digress for a minute and talk about two words: “subjectivity” and “objectivity”. What do I mean by those words? Basically, a person who is subjective is looking at the situations in his life from the viewpoint of the subject: himself, his circumstances, his solutions—or lack of solutions. On the other hand a person who is objective looks at situations from the viewpoint of the object—something or someone other than himself, or perhaps the objective he is trying to reach or accomplish.

If I say, “I trust God,” I have just spoken a sentence. In that sentence, the word “I” is the subject, “trust” is the verb, and “God” is the object. The emphasis of that sentence is on God—the object of the sentence. Therefore the sentence is expressing an objective viewpoint.

On the other hand, if I say, “I don’t trust God,” I have spoken another sentence. In that sentence, the word “I” is still the subject, “trust” is still the verb, and “God” is still the object. But the meaning of that sentence has been changed by the addition of that little word “don’t”. Now the emphasis is on “I”—the subject of the sentence. Therefore that sentence is expressing a subjective viewpoint.

The viewpoint of fallen mankind—fallen like our mountain climber—always tends to be subjective. It’s as if we were hanging from a cracking branch on the side of a cliff with nothing below us but several hundred feet of air. From our subjective viewpoint we’re facing a hopeless situation. Then God comes along and offers to save us—but only if we trust Him—something that requires an objective viewpoint.

Operating in faith requires objectivity. Had the mountain climber in the above story been a student of the Word of God, and was practiced in claiming the promises of God, resting in faith, and maintaining a relaxed mental attitude, he would have realized that he could utterly trust God—he would have found it much easier to let go of that branch.

You see, one of the believer’s greatest enemies is subjectivity. When we come into the Christian life for the first time as infant believers, we are generally already well-schooled in subjective thinking. What we need is drilling in the fundamentals of the faith—over and over again—until the normal viewpoint of our thinking is faith in God—the viewpoint of objectivity.

Objectivity requires a disciplined approach. It is the modus operandi or “MO” of the Christian life from beginning to end. At the beginning of his Christian life the Christian must learn the basic Christian walk. This basic Christian walk serves as the initial stabilizer in the Christian life, and also serves as “basic training” for the new believer. So what we are going to do for the rest of this lesson is look at some tools that God has provided to allow us to strengthen our objectivity, exercise our functional discipline, and to recover when we have lost our objectivity and become subjective.

We have already looked at the first tool, Restoration to Fellowship (RTF), when we studied confession of sin and recovery of the Filling of the Holy Spirit (FHS) back in Lesson Two. Without the FHS we are nowhere in the Christian life. None of these other techniques I’m going to show you will have any effect whatsoever without the FHS. But since we’ve already looked at that recently we’re going to take a look at some other tools. The first of these is …

Claiming God’s Promises

God has given us literally thousands of promises in the pages of His word, the Bible. Claiming God’s Promises (CGP) eliminates fear, anxiety and worry. Fear, anxiety and worry are mental attitude sins, but they are also very human reactions to many problems in life. But they tend to shut down the thinking process and allow unrestrained emotions to take over.

When this happens, the believer needs to regain control of the situation. By learning to CGP, the new believer can regain enough spiritual stability to get him through the problems of life until he begins to grow and advance in maturity to the point that he becomes spiritually self-sustaining.

All new believers require an external support system. This is one of the functions of the local church, and the fellowship of believers. Here the new believer can find Christian mentors who can assist him on his path to spiritual maturity.

But ultimately God’s will and plan for us is to be spiritually self-sustaining—that is for us, in all circumstances, to be able to draw upon spiritual resources previously acquired through prolonged consistent spiritual growth, so that we ultimately become “…perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works…” as 2 Tim. 3:17 puts it. Now the believer never outgrows his need for the local church. But every believer should get to the point where he or she is able to independently function spiritually if he needs to with only the FHS and the Bible doctrine that he has accumulated in his soul after many hours of Bible study.

So after the new believer learns how to regain the FHS by confessing known sins, he then needs to start attending a good Bible class and start reading his Bible, and start memorizing Scripture—especially promises.

So here are a few of the promises of God that, when believed and claimed, will stabilize the new Christian:

Isa 41:10—So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Prov 3:5, 6— Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Deut 31:8— The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

1 Pet 5:6, 7—Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.

There are many, many more promises in the Scriptures. And ALL of them call upon the believer to just relax and let God handle it. We have a somewhat more comprehensive list of Bible promises on this website that will serve to get the new believer started on memorizing some of God’s Promises.

So once we know some promises, how do we claim them? Do we just repeat them over and over like some kind of mantra, or what? No, in fact Jesus warned us against this kind of mantra chanting in Matt. 6:7 – “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” In order to claim a promise of God, it must be mixed with faith. This then gives rise to the next tool we want to look at:

Resting in Faith

God intends for us to claim His promises by expressing faith in His ability to deliver on those promises. He intends for us to do it so often it becomes second nature to us. In fact in Heb. 10:38 God says of the believer who trusts in Him, “But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in Him.” Not only does God expect us to live our lives by faith, but when we don’t He is sorely disappointed in us. Living the Christian life successfully requires faith in God’s promises. God wants us to rest in faith in His power: 1 Cor. 2:5 – “… so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

But some of you may be asking, “What if I don’t have enough faith? Where do I get the faith to believe?” Well, the Scriptures answer that. First of all, the Bible declares that Jesus is the source of faith: Heb. 12:2 – “… fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith …”. Then it says that God makes the faith we need available to each one of us in Romans 12:3 – “… God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

That’s all well and good, but are we even sure we know what faith is? According to Hebrews 11:1, “… faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” When a person really has faith, he is convinced enough of what he believes in that he is willing to step out even when he can’t see where he is going.

There is a difference between belief and faith—and it is a difference in magnitude. Belief is just the first stage of faith—you could even say that belief is the seed from which faith develops. Our mountain climber may have believed in God, but it had not developed into faith in Him. If he really had faith, he would have let go of that branch.

Belief is generally absolute—you either believe something or you don’t. If you’re not sure of the truth of something you can’t really say you believe it. So belief is an “either-or” thing. But on the other hand, faith is relative. It is something that you can have more of or less of. In Luke 17:5 Jesus’ disciples asked Him to increase their faith.

So how much faith is enough faith? Our Lord in the very next verse said, “… faith like a mustard seed …” is enough. The mustard seed is a very tiny seed—the smallest seed of the agricultural crops planted in ancient Israel. Our Lord was using it as a figure of speech to indicate that the tiniest amount of faith we can muster is sufficient for God to act on our behalf.

The difficulty comes—as usual—with us. We have difficulty expressing faith when the desired outcome is something that our experience says is very unlikely to happen. I have faith that when I get in my car, insert the key and turn it that the car will start. And 95 times out of 100 my faith is rewarded by my car starting. It’s easy to have that kind of faith. On the other hand if I’m hanging by a branch growing out of a crevice in a sheer rock cliff with nothing but air below me for 200 feet, and God is telling me to let go of the branch—well, that’s another matter.

What we want is the assurance of experience, and sometimes we do have that, but often God wants us to trust wholly in Him for the outcome. Pro 3:5 tells us, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” This is a difficult thing God asks us to do, yet He even supplies us the ability to trust Him. We see that when we combine the promise in Rom. 12:3 – “… God has allotted to each a measure of faith …” with Phil. 4:19 – “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus …” Most often we apply Phil. 4:19 to our physical needs, but it really applies to any and all of our needs—including spiritual needs.

So not only do the Scriptures state that faith comes from God, but in a very practical way they also tell us specifically how to go about getting that faith: Romans 10:17 – “So faith comes from hearing [the teaching of the Word of God], and hearing by the word of Christ [God speaks to us through the pages of Scripture].” Basically, this is telling us that as we study the Scriptures (preferably daily!) our faith is going to increase.

If you think about it that just makes sense. The Bible is declared to be the Mind of Christ in 1 Cor. 2:16. As we study the Word, we actually internalize Christ’s very thinking—and it transforms our thinking to be like His thinking! Since Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, it only stands to reason that as we begin thinking more and more like Him, our faith will increase.

So Resting in Faith (RIF), or Faith-Rest as some call it, is the next basic tool for the Christian. Really, it is an outgrowth of Claiming God’s Promises (CGP), but it’s something we consciously do. New believers need to use it right from the get-go, and it will need to be used for the rest of the believer’s life!

The next couple of tools in the believer’s tool belt, the Relaxed Mental Attitude (RMA) and Unconditional Love (UL) are going to take more discussion than we have space for, so we will take those up during next week’s lesson.

Father, thank You for not only providing us an object for our faith—the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also for going so far as to actually provide us the faith to believe in Him, and to believe in the many wonderful results and benefits to us that accrue as a result of His work. We can never adequately thank or praise You enough, for this wonderful provision. Now we ask You to bless this study—may the truths contained herein be a source of blessing and edification to all that read it, for we ask it in His precious name—amen.

Popularity: 17%

Related Articles

• No Related Post