Our Theology, Exposed.

What we believe about God affects how we live. And how we live exposes exactly what we think about God.

We pride ourselves in correct theology: we know and say all the right things. But do we live out our beliefs? Or do our actions deny all that we have affirmed?

Proper theology is not just a matter of knowledge–it is a matter of the heart. A heart that is willing to embrace what scripture teaches, and then live as though the gospel is true. “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.”

When we sin we show that we really believe an improper theology– one that has a stunted view of God and a dwarfed view of his strength, his wisdom, his goodness and his abilities to handle our lives for our good. Proper theology enables us to believe that God is big enough, strong enough, wise enough and good enough to handle all of the ins and outs of our lives. We will respond by living in a way that glorifies and magnifies Him at all times.

Proper theology is lived out in the mundane of daily life. In the little moments of our day.

I have been blessed to have some real-life examples of women who lived out their theology in the mundane and hardship of every day life.

These women practice what they claim to believe:

• My friend who prayed for years for children, but God did not give her any. Now she thanks God for giving her the ability to mother many needy children in the foster care system and has a heart for showing His love to these kids in crisis.
• My sister Hannah and her husband Jonathan, who testified to the fact that God is good all of the time to the doctors in the NICU as their baby was on life support and eventually died. Their view of God’s sovereignty allowed Jonathan to sing “His Way Is Perfect” over the tiny white casket of his 3 month old daughter.
• A friend who is in a difficult ministry where another ministry wife is bent on making her life miserable. She knows God put her in this difficult place with this difficult person for His glory and her good. She has taken on the “blessing for insult” mentality  towards this woman who is bitter, jealous and juvenile in return.  She knows that someday if this woman is truly saved, God will conform her to the image of His son and she will repent; if she is not saved, she hopes her kindness towards her will draw her to Christ.

I have also seen negative examples of this:

• Women who despair and worry when things go wrong, or who  choose bitterness and retaliation when they are mistreated.
• Women who manipulate to get what they want and think they deserve.
• Women who are critical and demanding of others, yet soft on their own sin and shortcomings. They claim to know Christ and His love, yet deny Him by their actions and words which are disobedient and carnal.

If we were to play out your life on a screen for all to see, would we watch a woman who is trusting, resting and living out what she claims to believe about God and His sovereignty?

Or would we see a woman who is living with no fear of God, as if there is no God and no day of reckoning coming?

Trials do not make you what you are, they reveal what you really are…and in this case, reveal what you really believe.