Every seed is a potential fruitful tree, but has to be sowed in a fertile ground, dies in the soil and then burst forth with new life, so is faith; it is that true seed that has great potentials to move any and every mountain, yet has to be sown in a fertile ground, dies before it can burst forth with great result.
TEXT: Matthew 13:57, Matthew 17:14-20, Proverbs 23:7, Leviticus 26:13, Mark 9:18
Every man is a product of his belief system, whether right or wrong. What you are is what the information you are exposed to have made you. What informs your thinking pattern cannot be inversely proportional to what you believe, and above all, the mind is the seeding bed for all of your aggregate, which means that when you want to change a man, you need to change his belief or value systems to gulp in his mind, what you aspire him to be. If the mind is not reformed, his life cannot change. The mind is such a cognitive faculty in man, it decides almost everything about him, although the mind is not him, it however drives the wheel of his life. Thus, imperative to talk about the mind, if we must successfully carry the faith that yields life in us. So, we want to resolve the question: how can a man believe from the heart, or what does it mean to believe from the heart?
There are five senses that the body responds to: taste, smell, feel, see and hear. These senses are not given to man to lead him, rather, to make him relate with his environment. These senses cannot respond or support faith, they cannot carry that seed word that produces faith, they would only yield death. Meanwhile, the soul of man comprises of his will, his emotions and his mind. The mind has two faculties: the conscious mind, and the sub conscious mind.
The conscious mind is figuratively that upper part of the mind that receives the senses of the soul or body at the initial, whatever drops in your conscious mind is not potent enough to run your program, it is actively working and can articulate thousands of information at the same time, that’s no more than shallow part of a river, which indeed has a source -a depth, a deep. This conscious mind is what eventually feeds the sub conscious mind -which is figuratively, the deep, the citadel that drives the affairs of a man’s life. This sub conscious mind is what is called the heart! This heart is the fertile ground that whatever enters in there, germinate. If you work up your conscious mind to take in things that are destructive and then download it to your sub conscious, you will see the result, and if what you have lived by is life, and your sub conscious feeds on that, you will see it manifest. The manifestation of man’s all reveals all that resides in his sub conscious mind (heart).
If we would narrow it down to us as Christians, having the word of God as the yardstick, you should know that the spirit of man has just two senses: faith or unbelief. Your spirit would respond to what is domiciled in your heart, and give it back to you, whether faith -leading to life, or unbelief -leading to death. So, when next you hear, “believe from the heart”, it means you’re defying all sensual, carnal law of both your body (taste, feel, smell, hear and see), and soul (imagination, conscience, memory, reason and affection), because they will never endorse the word of God to you. The flesh cannot comprehend spiritual things, they can only be spiritually discerned, so you’re breaking through the law of your body, you’re breaking through the law of your conscious mind, to letting that word settle in your sub conscious mind (heart), at this point where the word of God falls on that good ground, whatever you speak in prayers come through. But again, the heart is not a good ground because you fed it with good seed, even if what you feed it with is anti-God, it will produce it. What your life is right now, pictures all that your heart has received.
The heart is a receptacle, a womb, it holds your seed alive enough to let you eat the fruit of it. I think Solomon’s charge should make sense now, when he says, “guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”. Do you now see why Jesus always struggle with unbelief? When Jesus got to His home town, where he supposedly came from, the bible records that he could not do many mighty works, because of their unbelief (Matthew 13:53-58). There were many people with mental assets, who only wants to respond to the familiar: “is this not the carpenter’s child?”
The same way God is willing to help you, but you’re been familiar, thus giving up on faith. Jesus knew that all He needed to do for anyone to see miracle was to build their faith, if they can achieve faith in their heart, nothing is impossible. So, at every time someone comes to him, He asks: what do you want me to do for you? Even when their sicknesses are obvious. I mean, you can’t imagine that a blind man wants a car, he wants to see of course, but still, Jesus would ask. The essence is to have their faith built for the result they are expecting. It can only be unto you according to your belief! Whether you doubt His power to save you, or you trust it, that is your belief -and it will be to you accordingly.
Jesus had been doing many miracles with the disciples, and had even empowered them at some point to go preach the gospel and heal the sick. So, these were men with divine experiences, but a day came when they were faced with a challenge, and that doesn’t look like the one Jesus has done or can do (to them), hence, the defeat of their faith. After all their shouting in disbelief, the man decided to bring his son to Jesus. Jesus lamented over them, “oh faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I bear with you?” They were living in the familiar of what Jesus had done, and because they had not seen Jesus heal a crazy lunatic before, there was no faith in them to activate. It turned out that Jesus was not healing the sick before them to make Himself a superman, He wasn’t acting, He was teaching them how to build their own faith so that He would not have to teach them everything.
Belief is deep conviction and perception of reality. What this means is simple, belief is what your heart accepts as true, and that is what becomes real in your life. Many people praying are just musing words in their mouth, there is no deep conviction within that they can get the result of that prayers. We want to live above sin, yet we don’t have a strong realization that it is possible, such cannot see result of a life free of sin, because his spirit would respond to that doubt, and he will forever live in captivity. No wonder God had to recite before the children of Israel in Leviticus 26:13:
I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen, and I have broken the band of your yoke, and made you go upright.
If they don’t constantly renew their mind with that realization, they will get to the promise land and still be living as slaves. This tells us that, to live in light of the word of God, you have to constantly renew your mind by the word of God. That’s the only way your life can change.
Brethren, let this mind be in you, even the mind of Christ. When that happens, then you can live Christ.