Your problem is that belief changes everything.

Have you ever thought that you were acting against your own beliefs?

You weren’t

As Dallas Willard says:

“We always live up to our beliefs, or down to them as the case may be. Nothing else is possible. It’s the nature of belief. It’s the nature of belief.”

This is not a new idea. Jesus himself pointed out that your behaviour comes from your heart (the core of who you are or your beliefs):

Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Matthew7:17-20

This is a critical understanding for anyone who wants to understand their own behaviour or the behaviour of anyone else. We Christians can easily fall into the trap of focussing on behaviour and its consequences, which means we are always focussing on the wrong thing.

I want to introduce you to a tree. It is a tree that has come from the aid organisation, World Relief. The organisation’s reason for existence is to break the cycle of poverty, a task which is best summed up by the proverb:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

If Jesus and Dallas Willard are right, then the issue for the aid organisation is not so much about the behaviour of fishing, but rather the belief that produces the behaviour. World Relief’s experience and research showed them that in order to break the cycle of poverty, they needed to find ways to intervene with the belief systems of people who were stuck in poverty. They came with the tree diagram to describe that truth.

Two kinds of fruit from two kinds of belief

I have modified the World Relief diagram slightly to make it clear that there is different coloured fruit, because the truth is that your life produces different coloured fruit. Some of it’s fantastic, sweet and tasty and nutritious, and some of it’s rotten and dark.

The fruit is what is seen by others in a person’s life. You can’t really be annoyed at someone for stuff you can’t see. So we tend to be annoyed at the fruit, but the fruit is never the issue.

It’s why Jesus says, “It’s the heart that’s the issue. It’s not the fruit.” There are a whole lot of things that you believe to be true, and those beliefs produce how you act in the world. This is why following Jesus is much more than what you do. It’s not just about trying to get a grafted-on fruit. It’s about your beliefs.

As you look at the tree you can see that your beliefs, produce, whether you like it or not, or no matter what you tell other people, your values. Your values are what you believe to be valuable, or what you think is best.

Some of the clearest ways that you can tell what your values are are by looking at how you spend your time and how you spend your money, because they’re two things that you can make choices about. They are tangible measures of what you actually value.

As you look at the tree you can see that your values, or what you think is best, produces your actions. You are reading this right now because your values have enabled you to have access to a device on which to read it (probably costing you some money) and have told you that of all the things you could be doing right now, reading this is the most valuable way you could be spending your time. Other people are not reading it because they are valuing something else with their time and money.

Can you see how every decision you make comes out of your beliefs? Can you also see that your behaviour is not either perfectly pure or perfectly evil? Some of how you act reveals wonderful stuff. There are times and places where you are loving, where you act from and for truth, where you are creative and where you’re responsible. When you are acting in these kinds of ways you are acting in accordance with what it means to be truly human, in the image of God himself.

Can you also acknowledge though, that there are other parts of your life that show other kind of fruit?Can you acknowledge that there are times and places where your self-interest, greed and laziness cause damage to yourself, others and the world?

There is a spirit you have, created in the image of God, that knows truth, but you can’t know the difference between what is your spirit, and what is the other stuff. You don’t have this internal dividing line, and your feelings can come either from your mess or from your spirit.

Two sides

It’s tough being a parent, because you see that your kids carry the impact of both the best parts of who you are but also the scars of the worst parts. Our life is patchy, and while there is truth, and you don’t see it completely. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote:

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us it oscillates with the years. And even within the hearts overwhelmed with evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an un-uprooted small corner of evil.

The Gulag Archipelago

The benefit of looking at the fruit in your life is that it helps you start to see what you actually believe. If you take a long, hard, look at your life and look at the fruit that is actually produced, where it is bringing a life and wholeness, or where it’s bringing darkness and other stuff, it’ll show you what you actually believe.

I would love to tell you that all you need to do is come to faith, and from then on, you’ll be completely holy and everything you do will produce light and life. But we both know that’s not true, don’t we?

Sadly, in the Christian church, we’re not so good at being honest about that, and we somehow, we don’t talk about sin in a healthy enough way. At the back of my Bible for many, many years, that’s still here, I think, I’ve had this, I think it was 2005 I put it in there, this newspaper clipping that says, “Pastor admits lies and sin.” And it’s a story out of America.

The reason I put it in there, what struck me though about it, was that people were disturbed that a pastor admitted lies and sin. What is more disturbing is when pastors don’t.

If any person makes out that they’ve got it all together, they’re someone to watch out for. Only Jesus was perfect.

What Jesus wants to do is to take our hand, and help us face the mess, help us face our wrong beliefs.

Checklists

The Apostle Paul, was trying to help the church in Galatia address the same kind of questions, so he gave them two checklists.

He said, “Look, here’s a bit of a guide to the kind of fruit that is an indicator there’s something not quite right:”

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

It can be easy to just read the first few things on Paul’s checklist, (Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft) and think, “Yeah, that doesn’t apply to me,” But the list doesn’t stop there does it? By the way “orgies” at that time, that basically meant the active quest for unrestrained pleasure. It was more than just the sexual side of stuff. It was unrestrained, putting no boundaries around what you want to do. Paul also makes it clear, this isn’t a comprehensive list when he says, “And the like.” And the like. He’s saying, “Be on the lookout for the wrong kind of fruit.”

Then he said, “Just in case you’re wondering, there is a right kind of fruit.” And he gives us that checklist:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

All of these things are indicators that Jesus is actually at the steering wheel of your life, that you are living in truth.

But can you acknowledge the fact that it’s, at best, for you, it’s partial?

So what the Bible makes clear is we can look at our behavior, look at the fruit, and start to see what’s going on for us, because we can’t see, truly, you cannot see your underlying beliefs. Most of them are unconscious. And it is this kind of fruit that builds and destroys relationships.

That’s why in this year, when we’re talking about communities, it’s why we need to have these kind of discussions, because this is the root issue behind community not working, behind relationships not working. What you actually believe, is the root issue of all the challenges in your life.

An external point of reference

The Bible invites us to look at ourselves, but it also invites us to look at Jesus.

The Gospel of John starts out by saying that Jesus came into the world in order to help all of us see truth.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

John 1:4 NIV

Jesus himself says:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

John 14:6-7

The Old Testament book of Isaiah indicates that we need what builders call a plumb line. A plumb line is an external reference that enables a builder to know whether what they are building is straight:

So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic. I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.

Isaiah 28:16-17

Jesus is the measuring line, the plumb line, the cornerstone, and as we measure our life from him, it’s where we find life. It’s entirely possible to call yourself a Christian and turn up at church and play the religious game, but not functionally follow Jesus, to not functionally allow him to help you take a next step.

As Jesus himself says:

If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:31-32

Holding on to Jesus’ truth in the face of your own wrong beliefs can even sometimes feel wrong, because your feelings are based on the reality you see, not on the truth that comes from Jesus all the time.

So how do we move forward?

So how do you actually live from Jesus’ truth? It requires discipline. Just as you can’t just choose by force of will to do a marathon without disciplining yourself to train. You can’t just choose by force of will just to change what you believe. You actually have to discipline yourself and let Jesus take you on a journey.

Hebrews 12 gives us a clue:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Hebrews 12:11-13

Do you see the first part of the verse, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful?” We don’t talk enough about the fact that actually following Jesus will feel painful sometimes, because he is going to ask you to face the wrong beliefs that you hold on tightly to. He’s going to want you to grow up, and growing up is sometimes difficult.

Can you see though, that doing the work of discipline makes the journey ultimately much easier (level paths) and is a pre-requisite for righteousness?

This is why we are saying at Citywide we want to be a church of next steps.

As you take Jesus’ hand, my hope and prayer for you is that he will be helping you take the a next step. I don’t know how it works for you, but he always seems to have an agenda with me, something he’s working on. Sometimes I can get stuck for weeks or months or even years, and he’s not going to bully me or push me. And I think one of the greatest tragedies for anybody is not to take a next step, but to live the same day in and out and in and out and not move forward at all in your life.

Jesus promises that as we hold to his truth, the truth will set us free. Are you sick of not being free? Are you sick of falling into the same traps over and over again? Are you interested in the whole life that can only come through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit?

This is the second part of a series of reflections I am writing about what it actually means to follow Jesus. You can read part one here: LET’S GET REAL.