Along the Way: Beliefs

Opinion

by

Practicing Faith

Oboedire | May 7, 2026

Beliefs are the stance we take for ourselves, not a demand we make to others. Oswald Chambers put it this way,

“The spiritually minded person will never come to you with the demand— ‘Believe this and that.’ but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus…Always keep your life measured by the standards of Jesus. Bow your neck to His yoke alone, and to no other yoke whatever…It takes a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view.” (My Utmost for His Highest, May 7)

This wisdom has vanished in much of contemporary Christianity, replaced with litmus tests using statements of faith as the dipstick for determining who is a “true believer” and who is not. Of course, the ones holding the dipstick are always the good guys; everyone else is suspect until they pass the test.

But people like Chambers knew (and continue to know) that belief is the front door into a large spiritual house made up of many rooms, each room lined with bookshelves filled with volumes about the room’s topic. Belief is a choice we make in the context of options given to us by Christians over the centuries in dialog with our reason and conscience.

Belief is our witness, not our mandate. Belief is conviction, not certainty—offered with humility, not hubris in a spirit which says, “I could be wrong. But even if I am right, I am not 100% correct and my belief is surely not fixed and final.”

We believe in God, who has created and is creating; that ongoing creation includes our beliefs as well. We are becomers (Keith Miller), Christians in-the-making (E. Stanley Jones). Beliefs are wet clay in the Potter’s hands. God is not finished with us.

The Rev. Dr. Steve Harper is retired seminary professor who taught for 32 years in the disciplines of Spiritual Formation and Wesley Studies. Author and co-author of more than fifty books.. He is also a retired elder in The Florida Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.