Credo: I Believe—But In Whom? -- By: Peter Toon

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 10:2 (Spring 2001)
Article: Credo: I Believe—But In Whom?
Author: Peter Toon


Credo: I Believe—But In Whom?

Peter Toon

Most people long to have beliefs and convictions that both bring them inner happiness and provide meaning and purpose for their lives. Apparently each of us wants to feel good about himself and his place in the world.

How and what I feel as an “individual” is important to me. In fact sometimes, the way I feel seems to be the only real thing in the world. My emotions are so very much part of me that on occasions they seem to be the whole of me. Yet I know from the experience of living, from my mistakes and from those of others, that I cannot plan and run my life or decide what is right and wrong simply by following my feelings. They are too volatile, sometimes up and sometimes down and sometimes in a whirl.

If I am going to be stable and balanced, my feelings, my emotions, my affections—my inner self—need to be coordinated with what I think, what I believe, what I ought to be and to do and what I intend and decide. This is easier said than done! But it is possible if we begin in the right place in the right company with the right motives! We need to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus within the household of God the Father, with a sincere heart to be taught by him there.

Not An Individual But A Person In Relationship

One of the first things that I learn in the school of Christ is that I am not an individual but an individual person.

I am not like an isolated pebble on the beach, near to other pebbles and rocks, but not really connected to them. Rather I am like a part of a body, connected to other parts of the body as well as to the brain, nerve center and heart. I am a member of the human race; I am God’s creation, made in his image and after his likeness; I am related to my family by ties of procreation and blood and thus I have relatives. Certainly I have individuality as a person for no one is exactly like me. God has made me like other human beings but with an uniqueness as his creature.

The truth of the matter is that I am an individual person connected by God’s ties to God himself as my Creator and to other human beings as his creation.

For Christianity, a key verb is “I believe” or “I trust.” Both in the Old and the New Testaments there is much emphasis upon “believing” and “trusting.” Where the soul of a person is rightly ordered then believing and trusting involves right thinking, right feeling and right doing. To trust in the God the Father and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ involves right thinking and right feeling and leads to right action.

We know from experience that to believe in or to have fa...

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