Between

"Unbelief puts circumstances between itself and Christ, so as not to see him. Faith puts Christ between itself and circumstances, so that it cannot see them."

              - F.B. Meyer, The Shepherds Psalm, page 17

Help My Unbelief

Help My Unbelief -Pete Wilson

"If you feel like your life is marked by fear and anxiety right now on any level than I’m praying this prayer for you today."

Controlling Metaphor

[I read a] "little book by F. B. Meyer called The Shepherd’s Psalm (1889). In it, I found what we in English studies call a controlling metaphor (a powerful albeit understated idea that holds all the other parts of a paradigm together). This, I believe, is the controlling metaphor of the Christian life, and one that I first found in Meyer’s book and first seized in that little cozy apartment during my first day in Beaver Falls. Meyer says, “Unbelief puts circumstances between itself and Christ, so as not to see Him…Faith puts Christ between itself and circumstances, so that it cannot see them” (p. 17)."

     - From Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Unbelief

St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. AD 315-67):

“All unbelief is foolishness, for
it takes such wisdom as its own finite perception can attain,
and measuring infinity by that petty scale,
concludes that what it cannot understand must be impossible.
Unbelief is the result of incapacity engaged in argument.”
—De Trinitate, III.24, cited in Douglas Kelly, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 19.

Hat Tip: What Is Unbelief? – Justin Taylor:

The Root and Fruit of the Problem

What is the root of all sin?  Pride?  Greed? No, it is Unbelief - not believing the good news, according to Tullian Tchvidjian

Temptation is a false promise–a promise that doesn’t deliver. When we give into temptation, we are believing a lie. In the moment that we’re being tempted to do something, say something, or believe something, there is a deeper temptation happening under the surface. This may come as a surprise to you, but temptation has more to do with belief than it does behavior. Every temptation to sin (going all the way back to the Garden of Eden) is, at it’s root, a temptation to disbelieve the gospel.

When we are being tempted, we are being enticed to purchase something we think we need in order to escape the judgement of emptiness. On the surface, the bait might be lust, anger, greed, self-pity, defensiveness, entitlement, revenge, having to win, and so on. But the only reason we take the bait is because we think it will satisfy our deeper hunger for meaning, freedom, validation, respect, empowerment, affection, a sense of identity, worth, and so on.

So, here’s the connection between sinning (the fruit of the problem) and unbelief (the root of the problem): our failure to lay aside the sin that so easily entangles is the direct result of our refusal to believe in the rich provisional resources that are already ours in Christ–we’re not believing that, by virtue of our Spirit-wrought union with Christ, everything we need and long for, we already possess. John Calvin rightly said that, “Christians are in perpetual conflict with their own unbelief.”

Much more at the link.  I could spend many hours thinking through the meaning and implications of this brief quote ..... and probably should!

Overcoming The Sin Underneath All Sins

In the midst of an on-going friendly disagreement and discussion with Keven DeYoung over grace and Christian growth (click here, here, and here for the details), Tullian Tchividjian dropped this wonderful little bon mot worth much attention:

"What is indisputable is the fact that unbelief is the force that gives birth to all of our bad behavior and every moral failure. It is the root. “The sin underneath all sins”, said Martin Luther, “is the lie that we cannot trust the love and grace of Jesus and that we must take matters into our own hands.” Therefore, since justification is where the guillotine for unbelief and self-salvation is located, we dare not assume it, brush over it, or move past it. It must never become the backdrop. It must remain front and center–getting the most attention."

From: First Things First – Tullian Tchividjian

Swim in the Reality of What You Have

Some of the best writing on the meaning of grace and acceptance in Christ continues to come from Tullian Tchividjian:

"Christian growth does not happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. Rather, Christian growth happens by working hard to daily swim in the reality of what you do have. Believing again and again the gospel of God’s free, justifying grace everyday is the hard work we’re called to.

This means that real change happens only as we continuously rediscover the gospel. The progress of the Christian life is “not our movement toward the goal; it’s the movement of the goal on us.” Sanctification involves God’s attack on our unbelief—our self-centered refusal to believe that God’s approval of us in Christ is full and final. It happens as we daily receive and rest in our unconditional justification. As G. C. Berkouwer said, “The heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on justification.”"

From:  Tullian Tchividjian - Rethinking Spiritual Growth

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z

Don't Take Your Unbelief Too Seriously

"Everyone who has to contend with unbelief should be advised that he ought not to take his own unbelief too seriously. Only faith is to be taken seriously; and if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, that suffices, for the devil has lost his game."

- Karl Barth, quoted in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton

Hat Tip: The Children Shall Enter - Mike Potemra - The Corner on National Review Online

Lethel Combination

"'Almost all our spiritual problems comes from having too dwarfed a view of God and too inflated a view of ourselves. Sin thrives by a lethal combination of pride and unbelief.'"

From: J.D. Greear at www.jdgreear.com