Do Renewed Minds Yield New Hope
By Shafer Parker
At Faith Beyond Belief we are dedicated to the proposition that there is never a good time for God’s people to lose hope, not even in the middle of a pandemic. That is why back in January we started emphasizing a different aspect of hope each month. Like Peter stepping out of the boat to walk on the water, all of us occasionally take our eyes off Jesus and find ourselves frightened by the storm. All of us can momentarily lose hope and feel as if we are about to drown. At FBB we hope to be the hand of Jesus, ready to provide a grip to those who cry out for help and hope in troubled times.
“At Faith Beyond Belief we are dedicated to the proposition that there is never a good time for God’s people to lose hope, not even in the middle of a pandemic.”
Take another look at the heading for this blog. Have you ever considered that hope can only arise, and be maintained by a certain kind of mind, but that hope will quickly disappear from another sort? Certain minds seem to hold onto the Spirit just like certain soils soak up water and hold it. Other minds seem to lose the Spirit as quickly as water drains through sand. The difference seems to be faith, undergirded by truth. Without a living faith the mind can soon give up on hope, as former Hawk Nelson lead singer Jon Steingard makes clear in a recent Instagram confession.
Steingard grew up in a Christian home (his dad was, and is, a pastor), and that meant his whole life was lived in a Christian milieu. Nor did anything change when at age 20 he joined the contemporary Christian music group Hawk Nelson to write and sing Christian songs. Now, 16 years later, he openly doubts the heart of the Christian faith, including Biblical inspiration and the existence of God, and wonders out loud whether he ever really believed. You can read the whole story for yourself online.
Steingard says he is in a good place now, thanks to the continued love and acceptance of friends and family. But his faith is gone, and these days he says he mostly feels better for it. He and his wife, now that they are being honest, say they never liked going to church, reading the Bible, praying, or worshipping. “It all felt like obligation,” he writes, “and our lack of enthusiasm about those things always made us feel like something was wrong with us.” Steingard says he now realizes what his problem was. He and his wife just did not believe, and now that they have given up on faking faith, they “have a tremendous sense of relief.” One wonders about the true nature of that relief. There are many ways to ease a bad conscience, but only one that lasts.
By way of contrast, let us consider Jesus, which is about as contrasty (contrastic?) from Steingard as you can get. In Hebrews 12:2 it says of the Lord that He is “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame. . ..” Jesus is more than a mere example of faith. He is the founder (author) of saving faith for all who believe. Those who maintain their hope do so only when they possess a faith that comes from Jesus as a gift (Eph. 2:8-9). And the gift of faith that Jesus gives is as strong as the faith that sustained him through the day of his crucifixion. When he died on the cross, he was not setting an example of faith. Rather, he was demonstrating the power of his faith because he wants his followers to understand the sheer greatness of the gift he has given them.
“Those who maintain their hope do so only when they possess a faith that comes from Jesus as a gift (Eph. 2:8-9).”
Jesus’ faith was so great that not even suffering and death on the cross could take away his joy or tempt him to abandon his obedience. As he hung between heaven and earth, Jesus kept his mind centred on the promises God had placed for him in his eternal Word.
Ps. 16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. 10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. 11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
Do you see what is going on here? In a psalm explicitly identified in the New Testament as messianic, Jesus prophetically states that his heart is glad, and that his whole being rejoices, because he has his Father’s promise of resurrection. More than that, he has the Father’s promise that his death will be filled with purpose. “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11).
In other words, on the cross Jesus drew strength directly from the promises found in the inspired Word of God. Did God’s promises fail his Son? To ask the question is to answer it. Of course not! While Jesus was suffering and dying, he had total confidence that not one of God’s promises would fail. This, by the way, is the kind of faith Jesus gives to those who are born of God (Jn 1:13). Have any of God’s promises to His people ever failed? Of course not, no more than the promises the Father made to his Son could ever fail. In the same way, then, our faith can never fail, so long as we have eyes to see the promises set before us in the Word, and hearts to believe.
The question is, how do we get eyes to see and hearts to believe? How do we get such new minds and hearts that, like Jesus on the cross, we can maintain hope through life’s greatest trials? Let me ask you to pray for grace to “get” what comes next. The Biblical new heart and renewed mind, which leads to unshakeable hope, can only come as a gift from God. It is not something we humans can acquire through our own efforts. This is exactly what Jesus had in mind when he told Nicodemus that to “see” the kingdom of God he had to be “born from above” (John 3:3), or “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
Without getting into the question of whether faith leads to the new birth or is part of the new birth, let me be very clear about one thing; the New Birth is a supernatural work of God! The moment a person undergoes that work of God, and only then, does a person become a Christian in the New Testament sense. Apart from the second birth one can only pretend to be a Christian, and like all pretenses, over time it becomes difficult to maintain.
“Apart from the second birth one can only pretend to be a Christian, and like all pretenses, over time it becomes difficult to maintain.”
The problem with Jon Steingard, along with the host of other prominent Christians who have left the faith in recent years, is that most, if not all of them were likely never born of God. They had to fake it, and after a while they just grew tired of pretending. That’s what the apostle John had in mind when he said of the apostates in his day, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (I John 2:19). Then, turning to his readers, John states in one simple sentence the difference between those who continue faithful and those who leave. “But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge” (I John 2:20). To paraphrase, “You (who remain faithful, who do not lose hope) have been born of the Spirit, and you know it (have knowledge).”
Now do you see the connection between hope and a renewed, spiritual mind? When the new birth returns your life to what God had in mind when he created humanity in the first place, you discover that you can do things that were beyond the limitations of your old life. Just like an old car with a new engine can suddenly goes much faster, so the born-again child of God can get on in life as never before. They can see what is really going on in the world. They see God at work everywhere. They find themselves involved in God’s work, and thus realize that joy and sorrow, pleasure and suffering, are all part of his eternal purpose for each life. Many Christians can’t explain this in words, but suddenly they begin to understand what’s going on in God’s world, to know that even evil is used by God to accomplish his good purpose. This is exactly what the apostle Paul had in mind when he describes the spiritual man in I Corinthians.
I Cor. 2:12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Do you have the mind of Christ? Are you renewed, mind, soul, and body, by the supernatural work of God’s Holy Spirit? Then your hope will never waver. If you are not born again, don’t hesitate to ask God for what He alone can give. But then, no matter how much you would like to be born again, don’t, don’t, don’t settle for anything less than a thoroughgoing work of God’s Spirit. And whatever you do, if you are not born again don’t try to fake being a Christian.
Don’t stop going to church. Don’t stop studying God’s Word. Don’t stop praying for new life. Don’t stop believing Christ’s promises to receive all who call on his name. But especially don’t stop until you know that through a supernatural work of the Spirit, you have been born “not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
CHRISTIANS NEED TO STAND STRONG. YOU CAN HELP THEM.
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