NICOLE STEVENSON | Co-Host, Former Adventist Podcast
One of the Apostle Paul’s great desires for the church was that we would be a growing people with lives shaped by the gospel. Led by the Spirit, Paul left us timeless examples in the Scriptures of how to pursue such a life. He showed us how to hold fast in every season to the gospel that saved us, and to entrust ourselves to the One who is now transforming us.
In his letters to the churches Paul would begin with a greeting and move seamlessly into profound and incisive statements about who God is, and who we are in Christ. Only after his declarations of reality would he instruct the church. When conflict or trial arose in the early churches, Paul responded by reminding them of spiritual truths that informed their identity and their appropriate responses.
Paul tirelessly reminded the church of the imminence and providence of God and of who the Lord has called and created the church to be—both for one another and for this lost world. Paul knew that for believers to respond to life in ways shaped by the gospel in every season they needed to take their natural thoughts and reactions captive and submit them to spiritual reality.
What We Believe Determines Our Behavior
We all know that what we believe impacts how we live. This is true in any context— for believers and unbelievers alike. It’s just human nature. We all live and respond to life from a particular set of beliefs. Cognitive dissonance occurs when we hold two beliefs that are inconsistent. When humans experience cognitive dissonance, we often create cognitive distortions in an attempt to make sense of the “reality” to which we’re committed.
Many of us who’ve left Seventh-day Adventism for Jesus have had to do a great deal of work examining our cognitive dissonance and putting our presuppositions and cherished “truths” to the test of Scripture. The freedom we experience as Scripture resolves our distorted beliefs is overwhelming, and Biblical reality becomes fixed in our mind as the reality from which we seek to live.
The fact that what we believe shapes our thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the world around us emphasizes why orthodoxy is so important! However, while the church has fought hard down through the centuries to guard against heresies, a quick look at Christian history makes it easy to see that orthodoxy doesn’t always guarantee orthopraxy (right worship/living).
The work of aligning what we know with what we believe and how we live is a work of a lifetime. It requires recognizing when old belief patterns emerge so that we can take every thought captive to obey Christ.
The work of aligning what we know with what we believe and how we live is a work of a lifetime. It requires recognizing when old belief patterns emerge so that we can take every thought captive to obey Christ. I most often notice my old beliefs emerging when I recognize myself thinking, feeling, and reacting to life in ways that don’t reflect a person who is trusting the Sovereign God of the universe.
It isn’t enough to know or argue for sound doctrine; we must believe it to the degree that it’s the reality from which we live. When what we know to be true about God and about spiritual reality intersects with our daily lives and perceptions, we’ll see our thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the world begin to change in ways that are uncharacteristic of the person we once were. It’s in this place that we begin to know what it is to be shaped by the gospel.
When I Thought Like An Adventist I Behaved Like An Adventist…
As a Seventh-day Adventist my core perceptions, fears, and goals were all shaped by the Great Controversy worldview. I perceived all world events through the lens of looking for the “Sunday Law” and the antichrist. My fears were shaped by what I’d been taught about the persecution that Seventh-day Adventists would endure at the hands of other Christians and governments. My goals were shaped by my desire to learn how to be a “better Christian” so I had a “better chance” at making it through Ellen’s prophesied last-day events.
One example of this can be drawn from my responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I remember all of my internal reactions centering on my Adventist perceptions, fears, and goals. I was out of the country when the terrorist attacks came and found myself on a 14 hour flight from Fiji to Los Angeles on the first day planes were allowed back in the country.
Since flights into the country had been grounded for a week prior, the plane we ended up on was a multi-level plane packed with people. After going through standard security we were ushered into a tiny, over-populated boarding area. Crowded as it was, I remember it being hushed with a heavy feeling of tension in the air.
As we waited to board the plane, my sister-in-law and I noticed that the gift shop across the way was selling switch blades and pocket knives. Keenly aware of the fact that any one of the people on the plane had access to weapons in the boarding area, I sat for 14 hours with my Bible on my lap (like a good luck charm) pleading with God to forgive me for any sins I had forgotten to repent of and trying desperately to remember them all and to repent “well enough” to be pardoned.
After we arrived in Los Angeles and worked our way through a bomb-threatened LAX, we were met by a sea of vehicles flying American flags on every street and freeway. The American flags draped over tall buildings and hung from overpasses. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, and it drew my mind to speculations about what this kind of patriotism could do in the hands of the antichrist who would one day turn the country against Seventh-day Adventists and sanction the persecution of Sabbath-keepers.
Back at home my family and I read prophecies from Ellen G. White’s writings that seemed to describe what had happened in New York, and we spent hours speculating over where we were at in Ellen G. White’s timeline of prophecy. All these events were intensified by the war that followed, the seemingly countless anthrax scares, and the rumored threat of biological warfare (remember the cellophane-covered windows?).
Shaped by the Gospel
I was thoroughly shaped by my Seventh-day Adventism, and it drove all of my responses to reality. When I left Adventism for Jesus, I joined a Christian church, and in fellowship with other Christ-followers I began the work of dismantling the distorted worldview of Adventism and replacing it with the reality taught in the Bible.
Being shaped by the gospel means living daily trusting all that God has revealed to us in His Word and remembering who we are in Christ. It means living from and for Biblical reality in every season. By the Holy Spirit, through the word of God, we are set free by the truth and for the truth. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31b,32).
Being shaped by the gospel means living daily trusting all that God has revealed to us in His Word and remembering who we are in Christ.
Jesus has freed us, indeed! We are finally free to fear God alone, to perceive reality as it really is, and to make it our aim to live lives pleasing to God! This is why true believers can walk through this world (which is seemingly on fire) knowing that the God who created us, who died for us, and who gave us new life in Him, is sovereignly at work in all things. True believers can stand on the brink of a world war, or sink beneath the weight of a crumbling economy, knowing that our God is Jehova-Jireh who provides for His people.
Aligning Our Behavior With Our Belief
Living a life shaped by the gospel means that we can walk toward this unprecedented presidential election knowing that nobody is walking into that White House in January apart from the will and purposes of God! We can put our panic down. Whether our next leader of the United States is the person we voted for or not, we can know that God is not wringing His hands wondering what to do. God does not need us in order to accomplish His purposes.
After studying the books of Daniel and Revelation, I know from my core that our omniscient and good God is at work. Even now God is bringing human history to the culmination He has decreed in His Word. When we know we are saved and kept for salvation by the power of God, we can entrust our lives and our future to Him and focus on living lives that honor Him and bring truth and hope to a lost world. We can stop contributing to societal noise and instead lay down our lives for the work of the gospel.
We cannot change God’s plans even when we don’t like them. When our old thought patterns leave us feeling as though we’re being tossed by a raging sea while He sleeps in the boat, we can take those thoughts captive to obey Christ. We can choose to remember that God is faithful and in control. When we do, we are freed from our distorted thinking which so easily dishonors the gospel, and we can finally get to work obeying and serving the Lord as we bear His name into this historical moment.
It isn’t unnatural for Christians to be afraid of dangerous situations, but what we know about God must inform how we behave in them. Had I been a Christian back in 2001 after the terrorist attacks I would have responded quite differently. Had I known Jesus that day on the plane heading back to Los Angeles, I still might have had my Bible in my lap, but I would have been reading it. I still might have been praying, but I would have been thanking Him for saving me, and I would have been praying for everyone around me.
Had I known Jesus in 2001 I wouldn’t have been seeking out the teachings of a false prophet to know what to do next. I would have been at work side by side with other believers in my local church being encouraged and serving the community, praying for the grieving, and bringing the gospel to those who were ready to hear it. What we believe must inform how we behave.
It’s Time To Live What We Believe
If we compartmentalize our Biblical worldview away from how we perceive our daily reality we will find ourselves revisiting our old companions of cognitive dissonance and cognitive distortions. We will feel like one person on Sunday at church, and another person entirely during the week as we reel from the world news headlines and rail against those who aren’t responding as we are.
Paul knew that for believers to respond to life in ways shaped by the gospel in every season they needed to take their natural thoughts and reactions captive and submit them to spiritual reality— this is still true for us today. It’s time to encourage one another to let what we know about God shape how we live and how we walk through this moment in history.
It’s my prayer that we will remember that our God is the Ancient of Days who holds the pen of history and who has given us resurrection life so that we can go and make disciples in every season. †
- Truth Triumphs Over Terror - September 5, 2024
- Where is the Comfort For My Grief? - July 11, 2024
- Trust the Bible, Please! - May 16, 2024