"Living the Life You Believe"

This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. (1 Timothy 1:18-19 NASB).

Somebody pointed out that if we don't live the life we believe, we will end up unhappily believing the life we live. Perhaps you have visited the Moody Institute of Science. I have read they have a special pair of eye glasses when worn make everything appear upside down. Talk about mental distress! In an experiment the founder of the institute, Irwin Moon, wore these glasses every day and night and slept with his eyes covered so that he never looked at anything without wearing these glasses. After three weeks his mind converted everything so things appeared the right side up! The mind does a similar thing when we live out of harmony and relationship with God.

When we consistently go against what we know to be right, we get into what is called cognitive dissonance which, simply put, means mental disharmony. And, not being able to live with this distress, we will change our beliefs to match our behavior. This way we justify whatever it is we want to do.

The Apostle Paul in our reading today writes to Timothy knowing that his life is nearing an end. Soon he will be martyred for the cause of Christ. He tells him to fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience. I find it very interesting that Paul reflects on his life and chooses his advice to Timothy with the metaphor of doing battle. Life can be a battle. It is often unforgiving and cruel. The apostle surely experienced the cruelties of life. Yet, he advises Timothy to continue in the fight! The weapons he tells him to carry are simple: keeping faith and a good conscience.

Keeping faith is harder than it appears at first glance. You’d think that it would be easy to simply believe what you believe. My experience has been that there are often significant challenges to my beliefs from outside forces I have little or no control over. That’s when KEEPING faith is so important. Of course, I am not suggesting that we blindly place our trust in something that we have had no background or history with. My faith in God is built on His consistent faithfulness. Following on the heels of keeping faith is the development of a good conscience. Some would tie that to our behavior. It can only fail if we do that. A good conscience is based in the grace of God granting us forgiveness through the work of Christ. Another way of saying this is behavior follows faith. Get your faith right and your actions will follow. Don’t be caught believing the life you live. Live the life you believe!