The other day I was praying about what I, as a pastor, need to do to effectively motivate the people I lead to behave as true disciples. I was reminded of a very well articulated assessment by Dallas Willard of the challenge before us. In The Divine Conspiracy, he writes,
“One of the greatest weaknesses in our teaching and leadership today is that we
spend so much time on trying to do things good people are supposed to do, without changing what they really believe…But in our culture there is a severe illusion about faith, or belief. It is one that has been produced by many centuries of people professing, as a cultural identification, to believe things they do not really believe at all. That goes hand in hand with the predominance of what was called client, or consumer, Christianity earlier. Thus there arises the misunderstanding that human life is not governed by belief.
We often speak of people not living up to their faith. But the cases in which we say this are not really cases of people behaving otherwise than they believe. They are cases in which genuine beliefs are made obvious by what people do…And the reason why clergy and others have to invest so much effort into getting people to do things is that they are working against the actual beliefs of the actual people they are trying to lead…What has to be done, instead of trying to drive people to do what we think they are supposed to do, is to be honest about what we and others really believe.” Pgs 307-8
Dallas’ words place us on the right path. Now the challenge is this: How do we influence others to believe, with real conviction, the truth of God’s word. Isn’t this challenge all the more difficult when dealing with people who question the ability for us to know, with any degree of certainty, what is true? If we intend to convince people that what they presently believe and trust in is not true we must convince them that we have some source we can turn to that provides us with the ability to discern truth from error. The bottom line: We must restore confidence and conviction that the Bible is the revealed word of God, that it communicates truth (i.e. that which corresponds with reality) and as such, is worthy of careful study and application?
Dallas is write to suggest that until we change beliefs we will not significantly alter behavior.
How do we refute faulty belief systems and create strong convictions about what is true?
1. We must make every effort to persuade. How will they believe what they have never heard?
Rom. 10:13
2. We must rely on the Holy Spirit. He convicts the world. He guides into all truth. We are not self-sufficient for the task. We need Him!! They need Him!!
