Victory over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson

Author:Neil T. Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780830725649
Publisher: Regal Books

Note

1. Author and source unknown.

Chapter 7

You Can’t Live Beyond

What You Believe

Walking by faith is a little bit like playing golf. When my son, Karl, was about 10 years old, I introduced him to the game of golf. I gave him a little starter set of clubs and took him to the course with me. Karl would tee up his ball and whale away at it with his mightiest swing. Usually he sprayed the ball all over the place. Because he could only hit it 60 or 70 yards at best, his direction could be off by 15 degrees or so and his ball would still be in the fairway.

As he grew up and got a bigger set of clubs, Karl was able to drive the ball off the tee 150 yards and farther. If, however, his drive was still 15 degrees off target, his ball no longer stayed in the fair-way; it usually went into the rough. Accuracy is even more important for golfers who can blast a golf ball 250 yards off the tee. The same 15-degree deviation that allowed little Karl’s short drives to remain in the fairway will send a longer drive soaring out of bounds.

Your Christian walk is the direct result of what you believe. If your faith is off, your walk will be off. If your walk is off, you need to take a good look at what you believe. Suppose you began your Christian walk just 15 degrees off in your teenage years. You are still in the fairway of life, but if you continue to live the same way for many years, life may start to get pretty rough and eventually you may find yourself out of bounds. That is the classic midlife crisis. You thought you understood well what constituted success, fulfillment and satisfaction, but now you are discovering that what you had believed about life wasn’t quite true. The longer you persist in a faulty belief system, the less fulfilling and productive your daily walk of faith will be.

Walking by faith simply means that you function in daily life on the basis of what you believe. In fact, you are already walking by faith; you can’t not walk by faith. People may not always live what they profess, but they will always live what they believe. If your behavior is off, you need to correct what you believe because your misbehavior is the result of your disbelief. The writer of Hebrews said, “Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith” (13:7).

To better understand what you presently believe, take a few minutes to complete the following Faith Appraisal. Simply evaluate yourself in each of the eight categories by circling a number from one to five that best represents you, five being high. Then complete each of the eight statements as concisely and truthfully as possible.

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