There is a disconnect between belief and action. Many have written and expounded on this and it seems like a growing problem. Yet it can also be called the perpetual problem of humanity. Our actions don’t align with our beliefs. We say we believe one thing and yet our lives and our actions demonstrate the truth that this belief is not what we are operating by, rather it is something else.

I just saw this in a larger than life fashion. At the beginning of a comedy special that recently came out the viewer is shown a clip of the comedian praying and even ending the prayer “in your name we pray.” This is how we are led to believe this comedian starts every show, praying before he goes on. But once the show starts we see the disconnect. The first words out of his mouth are taking the Lord’s name in vain followed quickly by all manner of curses and vulgar topics. That seems like a drastic disconnect. Sadly it is one that we are all too familiar with because we all do it. 

We have all been right in the middle of a disconnect between what we believe and how we live. It can be as dramatic as the knockdown-no-holds-barred fight with the spouse right after church service. Or it can be the more subtle disconnect of just praying without expecting God to work. All of us struggle with this disconnect with faith and life, what we believe and how we live. We go to work on a Monday and Sunday seems very far removed from our situations. We get involved in conversations at work and our bible seems irrelevant.

We can cast blame in so many places, from the separation between secular and sacred, or the lack of applications given at our churches, or the lack of understanding that we have about how faith is lived out. But the reality is that while there is no doubt some of these have played their part in this problem, at its root the problem lies within humanity.

We are in a constant struggle. Our hearts are a battlefield. On one side is the desire to do what we want how we want when we want in the fashion we want to do it. It is the side of self-autonomous sin. On the other side is the one that knows we are under the Lordship and rule of our Savior and so we listen and serve Him in all things. This is the side that is grounded in our faith, knows the truth, and seeks to please and live for God. The disconnect happens when we forget who we are in Christ and choose to live in our old ways of self-reliance, self-determination, and self-rule. We forget what Christ has done for us. We forget what Christ has done in us. We forget who we now are in Christ.

So what do we do when this disconnect happens? Do we try harder? Do we beat ourselves up more? I think we do what we are called to do when we come to Christ. We came to Christ not by trying harder or more or better. We came by looking upon Him and trusting in what He did. When we experience that disconnect between what we believe and how we are living, look to Christ. Let Him pull the two back together. Remember who you are in Him.

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:6-7