What you believe is extremely important.

This is true for everyone. It doesn’t matter whether you follow Jesus or claim to be an agnostic. The truths you are building your life upon are intimately wrapped up in everything you do.

1. Actions are the Result of Beliefs. You are behaving precisely as you believe. If you believe your marriage is essential, you will devote time to it. If you believe your children are your most significant work, then you will devote all your time to them. If you believe in God’s grace, you will accept forgiveness and have a clean conscience. If you believe in eternal judgment, you will spend your life preparing for it.

You are living out what you genuinely believe, even if you are not making a conscious effort to do it.

2. Wrong Actions are the Result of Wrong Believing. If you had believed that neglecting your marriage would end in divorce, you might have handled it differently. If you believed that your children would grow up far from God by your actions, you would have treated them differently. If you had believed Jesus was the eternal judge, you would have taken him more seriously. If you had truly believed that walking down that path would lead to destruction, you never would have walked down it. If you believed correctly, you would not have made that mistake, but you believed wrongly.

Your actions can be the result of wrong beliefs too. Just because you feel you are right, doesn’t mean you are correct. The Bible warns us that the heart is deceitful above all things.

The Church is a place dedicated to teaching what is right. We have a sermon on Sunday morning from the Bible; we have Sunday schools, we offer small groups and Bible studies. The Church is a place where we teach and teach and teach and then teach some more. This is not because we are a bunch of boring individuals who like to sit around and do nothing but learn. It is because we want to make sure our thoughts and behaviors align with God.

A Christian is a person who is dedicated to learning the right things to believe so that our actions will be done in a way that pleases God.

Some days are not about making a significant impact; they are about learning God’s way so that my life will be in tune with its creator. I want to know what is right and true so that I can live the life God wants me to live.