And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. Hebrews 11:6 (NLT)
The Bible clearly teaches that God is looking for faith. Faith is closely allied with trust and is rooted in God. Boiled down to its basic components faith is the conviction that God’s character is impeccable, his promises sure, his power unlimited, his love beyond comprehension, and his wisdom boundless. Faith produces faithfulness, which can also be described as loyalty or allegiance.
People who are full of faith trust God and obey him through the most difficult and confusing situations because they are completely convinced that God is trustworthy. They trust God from the heart, even if the mind cannot comprehend the “why” of their situation.
I don’t often quote the Message Bible, but in this case I think it is very good.
Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Proverbs 3:5 (MSG)
Unbelief is the polar opposite of faith. Unbelief and its twin, doubt, have great difficulty trusting God because there is no assurance that God is deserves to be trusted. Will he keep his word and show love to us, or is he capricious? Does he even have the power and ability to keep his promises? Perhaps he is impotent.
Unbelief is a loud slap to the face of the Creator.
Faithless (disloyal) people have great difficulty when trials and tests come because they have no anchor. They are what the Bible calls “double minded,” wavering between two opinions. James says that such people are unstable in all their ways and cannot receive anything from God. (James 1:8)
The New Testament teaches us that no one is good enough, holy enough, or righteous enough to earn God’s favor and acceptance.
The only way we can please God, according to the Bible, is to trust him with all our hearts.
Specifically, we are invited to trust in the gospel, the good news that Jesus earned for us a right standing with God through his perfect life, death, and resurrection. God accepts the most imperfect people into his family when they decide to put their faith in Jesus. Conversely, when people refuse to trust him or believe the gospel, they throw away the one possibility of being accepted and blessed by God.
Unbelief is an extremely serious heart condition, which imperils our eternity.
Multitudes are afflicted with it. In fact, without the Holy Spirit’s intervention, it is the default condition of humanity. We were created to believe and depend on God. Everyone believes something, even if it is the conviction that there is nothing worth believing in. Without the Spirit’s help, however, we are programmed by sin to resist trusting in our Creator – Sustainer – Redeemer. What is the root of this condition of the heart? Is there a way out?
The Root of Unbelief
Unbelief is a plant that can only grow in the soil of a hardened heart.
Unbelief and doubt may seem to be rooted in the mind, but the Bible teaches us that they really reside in the heart, which is the seat of our affections and being. When Jesus encountered unbelief in his disciples, this is what he said.
At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread. 17 Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, “Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? 18 ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all? Mark 8:16-18 (NLT)
Jesus, the one who created us, knows that the root of unbelief is a heart that has grown hard against God.
People call unbelief by nicer sounding names – realism, cynicism, science… but the underlying reality is that unbelief reveals a heart that is hard and easily repels the entrance of truth, revelation, and faith.
The Greek adjective in this verse is translated “hardened” or “calloused.” When we build up callouses on our feet or hands, we lose feeling in those areas. Calloused hearts have severe difficulty feeling proper emotions relating to God and detecting the gentle nudging of the Spirit.
Whatever the reason for our hardened heart – disappointment, disillusionment, traumatic pain, bitterness… – it is the poisonous ground that grows the one thing that is able to block God’s grace to us – unbelief.
He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” 55 Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. 56 All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” 57 And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” 58 And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief. Matthew 13:54-58 (NLT)
The reason that those people were deeply offended at Jesus is the same reason humans in general are deeply offended at God – pride. They thought Jesus had no right to assume such high and mighty notions about himself as being a distinguished prophet and teacher and, dare we say, Messiah. Imagine: they refused to acknowledge the Creator come in the flesh! Our unbelief is just as stark and offensive to God.
The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:9-12 (NLT)
Rather than being drawn toward Jesus by the Spirit, they chose to reject him. This is what happens to people with a hard heart.
Pride robs us of being able to believe. It is offended by the requirement of acknowledging Christ’s lordship.
It takes humility to admit that we are created beings who only exist through the continuous sustaining power of God.
The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. Hebrews 1:3 (NLT)
The hardened heart will not – cannot – bow to the Lord Jesus.
The Antidote
Jesus warned those with hardened hearts in his audience that their heart condition was blocking them from life.
This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that says, ‘When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. 15 For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes— so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.’ Matthew 13:14-15 (NLT)
The only antidote to a hardened heart is to turn to Jesus through a combination of the inner working of God’s Spirit coupled with our choice to surrender our offenses and pride to God.
The Bible uses the word “repentance” to describe this surrender. In the New Testament, it literally means to “change the mind.” Repentance takes place when we admit to ourselves and to God that we have been wrong and that God is right. It means we stop leaning on our own understanding of things and start accepting what God says in the Bible. It means we lay down our offense against God and admit we need him desperately. It acknowledges that we are spiritual paupers who have nothing to offer God except to trust him completely.
Maintaining a heart that is “soft” toward God is a lifelong challenge. We must learn to forgive readily and freely; otherwise, our hearts begin to grow hard. We must learn to obey God swiftly and completely, lest our hearts start to harden. It takes the Spirit of God’s assistance to get started on this discipleship journey, and it takes his continual help to complete it. But take heart, that is what Jesus sent him to be and to do. He is our Helper!
"I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. John 14:16-17 (NASB)
If we are having a hard time believing and trusting in God, we should acknowledge that we have a hard heart and ask forgiveness. We should ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we need to repent and to work in us to restore us to a place of trusting God from the heart.
Prayer
Jesus, I now understand that my doubt and unbelief come from a heart that has a problem with trusting and submitting to you. Please forgive me. Holy Spirit, show me any particular areas for which I need to repent. (Anything that comes to mind should now be confessed to God.) Work in me a deep seated ability to fully trust and surrender my life to Jesus. I depend on you. Amen.
