It’s important as Christians that we know what we believe. Too often, there is this idea that we don’t really need to worry too much about Biblical doctrine, we just need to have faith. But the foundation of Christianity is not just the power of our faith. In other words, we are not to have faith in simply faith, but we have faith in the promises of God. Faith is not some monkey wrench by which we can manipulate God to get what we want to get from Him. Faith is only valuable as it relates to the promises of God. And the promises of God are our doctrine – the foundation of our faith. We don’t have faith in just any whim of our minds or any whim of doctrine, but we have faith that God keeps His word. God’s word says He has made a covenant with us. A covenant is a legally binding document containing promises and provisions for a transaction. And we can have faith in God’s covenant, because He keeps His word. Therefore, it behooves us to know what is in that covenant. You wouldn’t buy a house or a car or a business without knowing the conditions and the promises contained in that covenant, would you? How much less should we stake our eternal destiny on anything but the truth.
Eph 4:13 says, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.”
Paul is saying, in plain language, that Christians need to grow up. And I think it’s even more true today. For all the advantages of the modern church, we are basically infantile. Our faith is superficial. We don’t really know what we believe or why. And what we do believe too often is based on our own experience or someone else’s, and has no biblical basis. Christianity is not some spiritually sanitized version of the power of positive thinking, but it is the firm conviction of our faith in the truth of the promises that God has given us.
Hebrews 8:6 “But now He [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.” We have a new covenant, a better covenant, because we have a better mediator, and we have better promises. And this time, God says He will write His laws upon our hearts, not upon tablets of stone. He doesn’t take away the law, but He gives us a way of meeting His standard of righteousness, by changing us on the inside and giving us the Holy Spirit to live within us, to enable us to do His will.
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