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My "Statement of Faith" Okay here goes. Are you ready? Have a pencil handy?
I believe; help my unbelief! Insufficient you say? More detail required? Perhaps you're right. Here's some more then-
Now faith
is the substance (assurance, foundation) of things hoped for,
What - no mention of the divine inspiration of scripture, the triune nature of divinity, salvation by grace, baptism, the Lord's supper, the afterlife of the damned...? "I dare say I will never visit your silly little website again, for how can two walk together unless they be agreed?" Funny isn't it friends, how such things work. At the risk of offending many people, I dare say that the church in this hour appears, by all accounts, to have elevated doctrine to the same level that the Jews elevated the law.
And when the Holy One, the
Son of God, the Divine Man, The Alpha and the Omega, actually
stood before them, living and breathing, touching them even, and
showing forth the very heart and power of the Father, they did
what?
I can just picture some of them scrambling for their scrolls, fingering chapter and verse in the Torah, trying to make sense of the wonder that stood before them. "Could this be the Christ?" some little ones asked. Could the law answer that question then my friends? And can doctrine answer it for us now? Now please don't misunderstand; I am in no way (nor would I ever think of) disparaging or belittling the sacred truths of the Word of God, and I suppose I do have something of a list written in my heart, of things I believe. (there is also perhaps a bigger list of things I used to believe but have since discarded, but that's another article altogether). Yet it is not a rigid theological box that defines me, or a set of unbroken lines and limits that prevent me from following the free-flowing, Wind of the Spirit, wherever He leads. If it were, then I dare say that my precious Lord would be little more than some two dimensional, cardboard cut-out savior, who moves only 90 degrees on a grid, forward and back, left and right, up and down. Could it be that doctrine is yet another one of those things we have made an end, when it was always intended to be a means of help to us who believe? Have we raised it beyond the height of God Himself, such as the Pharisees did the Law? Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that maybe we really haven't yet discovered the true position or intent of doctrine in the grand scheme of things, as intended by the God of All Truth and Life! Something to think about certainly. And no, I do not believe the Holy Spirit would lead us to behave contrary to the very Word it inspired. This wouldn't really make much sense would it? In fact the spiritual life represents a law unto itself, as Watchman Nee points out -
Indeed, by walking most completely in the spirit and abiding in Christ Jesus, we cannot but fulfill all law and all doctrine, for it is the very Life of God being expressed in us. Does this make sense? I know it may seem contrary to much of what is being taught out there, where attention to law and doctrine, to rules and methods, is in the ascendancy. But don't you see that this preoccupation and devotion to ordinances (even though they may be inherently good) relies so much on the outward man - the soul and flesh - and they can never be fulfilled. EVER! And here's something else to consider. According to my understanding of the life and word of the Lord Jesus Christ, the two essential ideals to be wrought through abiding in Him fully are... Love and Wisdom! Here are the weighty matters of the law indeed! Here is where the rubber meets the road of our "walking in Him" and deriving every good and precious promise from He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life! Here is where righteousness breathes and moves and supplants every unclean contaminant in His universe! Here lies the answer to all the BIG questions we should be asking in this hour - the how, the why, the when, the who, the what of this newness of life in Christ Jesus. Here is where it all leads in the end, as all things are summed up in He who is the fullness of the Life and Glory and Majesty of the Most High! Homework Time! OK, here is your homework for tomorrow then. I would like you to chart or graph all of the places that both love and wisdom intersect with the law and doctrine. Maybe use some of those neat little lines with arrow heads to show all of the correlations and derivations and so forth! Then I would like you to study the lives of all the prophets in the Old Testament, all of the strange things they did, how they lived, what they ate, what they wore, who they married (and divorced), then chart all of this according to how closely it conforms to to the Law of Moses and the Deuteronomic Code. Incidentally, I can almost picture Ahab asking Elijah for his statement of faith, or Zedekiah asking Jeremiah if he believed in sprinkling or immersion. Well not really, but you get the idea. Is not our God a god of strange and mysterious ways? Is He so limited and confined by our meager understanding of His Most Perfect Word? I say not. Wouldn't it be so convenient, brethren, if merely visiting a church's website and scrolling through their bulleted Statement of Beliefs, would provide some accurate indication that the Lord of All Life was actually present and honored there? If only it were so easy! If only there was a way of knowing that these heavenly sentiments were written on the very hearts of the people inside, and especially the man at the front doing all the preaching. Indeed!
Now lest you think I am a heretic or worse, I encourage you to deeply and spiritually reflect on, and pray over what is being conveyed in this passage. Here are the laws of God written on the heart and the mind, not on sheets of paper, stone tablets or a hypertext web page. And the end result is a people (Israel) who henceforth "know the Lord", and He claims them as his own.
Dear brethren, my statement of faith is that I would have such a heart as this; and that I would know the Lord God as He intended from the beginning. My statement of faith is that the often divided and spotted heart currently within me would be made miraculously and supernaturally clean and whole; that I would love Him with all that I am and nothing held back! Now I have obviously employed exaggeration in this piece for effect, that we might put things - even good and helpful things - in their proper place, for this too is wisdom. What we believe is important, and the content of our faith, rooted and flowing from the Living and Written Word, must certainly have its place. Yet to have a heart and a hunger to know Him - that is what we should be after. Sure you can check the boxes next to the doctrines I subscribe to and somehow think that such a heart and such a hunger exists. But this is not always so. That is the point being made here, for both churches and individuals. I hope and pray it has been made. And if not, the fault (as always) lies with me alone and not the Spirit whose work it is to convey the deep and heavenly things of God to our inner man. If for whatever reason today, you find yourself estranged from He who very much wants you to know Him and to love Him with a whole heart, then I encourage you to return to Him now. For He is faithful and merciful and ever so kind to us who are ever so weak and worldly.
No brethren, He who is abundantly and inherently faithful will not fail us, nor forsake us. He is a Good Shepherd after all, and He is God! May it be that we come to Him and rest in Him most completely, and learn the secret of the Vine and the Branches, that we are one with Him, and He cannot deny Himself. May we learn that, heaped up for us in the vast storehouse of His heart is a wondrous supply of grace ready to replenish our every need in this dread hour at the close of this age. May we rise up beyond the weakness of our proud flesh in all the power and vitality of His Risen and Glorious Life! And may we walk only in Him whom we have received. Oh Father, we believe, but help us dear Lord to move from faith onward to more faith, only in Your Most Precious and Beloved Son. Amen - I believe; help my unbelief! Well there you have it - My Statement of Faith. I am sorry if it was less than you had hoped for. Please pray for us here at Living-Walk, that we would watch and see the Master at work, and understand what He would have us be and do. Your friend and servant in Christ Jesus, W.E. Smith |
