The Answer to Life Is – Stop Thinking! – Part 2

Bertie Brits teaches that great faith as spoken of in the Bible is not the result of believing God “for something”. Word of Faith has created the illusion of “great faith” as being a competition between Christians as to who can “believe God” for the biggest, most expensive and most extravagant things – as a means of proving their faith, holiness and devotion to God. I have come to see that Word of Faith, rather than being a means of “building God’s kingdom”, has become a means whereby neurotic Christians seek to safeguard their lives and build a sense of security through the pursuit of material wealth and position.  In his book, “Mastering Your Emotions”, Pastor Colin Dye asserts that people seek to appease their wants through the pursuit of people, power and possessions. Great faith, Bertie Brits teaches, is simply being convinced of the finished work of the cross. It is Jesus who makes our faith great – not material abundance and the like.

Christendom has become divided in that some Christians believe that God wants them to be rich, whilst some believe that God wants us to experience lack and hardship – each goes to extremes to refute the other. It is not so much a matter of figuring out how rich God wants us to be – but simply being reassured of the goodness of God, His love and acceptance of us, and His power to deliver and restore. So you see it is a matter of thinking. We are not to expend time and effort trying to “believe God” for things or to prove our worth to God. No, we are to simply be convinced of His love for us and that His grace is sufficient for us. This assurance is true faith and it brings a great deal of peace. It is in this state of peace, love and lack of fear that the Holy Sprit is best able to lead us and guide us. When we are experiencing union with God through faith as the Bible promises us – we are not required to figure things out for ourselves, make plans and decisions, we are simply required to obey without thinking.

God has given us a free will so that we can have our own opinions. For instance, some people like rock music whilst others prefer jazz; opinions and preferences such as this are what make us unique and give us character. These opinions are fine until they become interwoven in the fabric of our own carnal wants. Thinking can become a means of judging others as we put labels on them and dictate how they should be, what they should believe and how they should behave.

We are all born with an innate self-preservation instinct: it is this, I believe, which is what the Bible calls the “carnal nature” or “lower nature”. This lower nature functions via information gained from the senses, which it uses to protect itself from harm and loss. The lower nature operates through fear, which is logical reasoning, thinking based on limited human perception and reasoning. This thinking simply gets in the way of God. Without this thinking – we would be fully surrendered to God.

Thinking, decision making, apart from God was the very thing that created separation from God in the first place when the very first sin was committed in the Garden of Eden. Some see freewill thinking as a gift, a blessing – I am inclined to believe that is actually more of a curse. Holy Spirit would be able to move in me freely if it were not for the mass of thoughts, opinions and judgements that I have amassed over the years.