22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Mental agreement with the Word is not faith in the Word. We may mentally agree with the Word in our minds but that does not culminate in faith. A mental assenter hears the Word but does not believe it. The logic of God’s Word may make sense to him, but his heart, the core of his being, does not conceive the Word; his head agrees with the Word, but his heart repudiates it. He is in a fix; he is trapped in his head’s web. He has not yet learnt to free himself from the entanglements of natural human logic, neither has he learnt to accept God’s Word independent of evidence of the senses. Therefore, he is not a doer of the Word; he is only a mere hearer of the Word.
A mental assenter is like Thomas, who found it difficult to accept that Jesus had been raised from the dead, despite an earlier mentioning of it by the Lord Jesus Himself before His death. The disciples told him that the Lord Jesus had been raised from the dead, but he refused to believe them. They even told him that they had seen the risen Lord from the dead, but he did not believe their report. He did not believe the Lord’s report that He would be raised from the dead, and he didn’t believe the disciples’ report of His resurrection, either. Why? He said that he needed evidence of the Lord’s resurrection, as in, the nail print in His hands, and that he must thrust his hand to His spear-bruised side, without which He will not believe. That’s Thomas for you – a mental assenter par excellence (John 20:19-29). But we ought to act differently as God’s children in Christ. We walk by faith and not by sight. We live in the realm of all possibilities. We accept the Word for what it says, and for what it presents. We receive God’s Word at face value. We know God is deliberate and very intentional as to what He says, His Word is true and honest because He is honest. We take God’s Word by faith and walk in the light of it. Hallelujah!!!
My Solid Front (Confession):
In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I declare that I am a believer in God and in His Word; therefore, I believe the Word independent of evidence of the physical senses. My heart agrees with the Word, and I am walking in the light of it. Amen.
Further Meditation:
John 20:24-29; 2 Corinthians 5:7.