Devoted to Jesus or to Our Beliefs about Jesus?

I used to be certain about my beliefs about God, but as I have continued to grow in Him, I have become increasingly uncertain about many beliefs I used to hold tightly. I have discovered that God won't be held captive to a set of beliefs; this can be seen clearly in Jesus who was continually confounding the religious leaders of His day by acting and speaking in ways that did not fit their belief system.

When I first began loosening my grip on what I had been so sure of concerning God, it scared me because my sense of security was based on being certain, not on God Himself. Now after a few years of exploring outside the confines of my inherited belief system and discovering that God is unbelievably wonderful, I am experiencing a level of peace and joy unlike what I had in the past. He is my certainty, not my beliefs about Him. This allows me to continue to keep changing in my beliefs and to be at peace with uncertainty.

Oswald Chambers had strong words concerning our tendency as evangelicals to be more devoted to our beliefs than to Jesus Himself. "...a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ."

"...When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God– it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, “…unless you…become as little children…”. The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, '…believe also in Me', not, 'Believe certain things about Me.'"

Our devotion to unyielding doctrines and beliefs about God cause us to look more like the Pharisees of Jesus' time than like Jesus. In these days of significant social change in our culture we have a great opportunity to demonstrate what it means to be devoted to Jesus and His ways (serving those in need, giving to the poor, befriending those we consider unlovely and unworthy, embracing the "other" without judgment) rather than to defend our beliefs about Him and shut people out of the kingdom.