day 817: Mental Assent

"For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved."

Trying to get people to move from compliance to real commitment is a constant challenge for any business or organization. We do the best we can to describe what is most important to us, paint a vision of the future, and then hire the people we think have the most passion and commitment. But, even when we think we have it all right, we get it wrong somewhere along the way and we end up spending a whole bunch of time re-convincing someone, or worse yet, having to deal with a people problem. What we want to move people from is working solely with their heads and hands to adding working with their hearts. To make this happen, we must reach and touch them where they are, deep in their values and principles. If we can align there then we have the best chance of having someone truly commit to the business and task at hand. These means starting with knowing what we truly believe about the business and then communicating that to others in way that they identify and believe for themselves.

This past week in the Sunday School class I teach, the title of the lesson was "Heart Faith or Mental Assent". As I taught the children about the difference, I realized that all of us could use the lesson to be repeated to us. It's not enough to just say we believe and then let our actions say the opposite. When this happens it brings to question from those around us about what is real and what is not? So often it is easy to just mentally agree with something but never let it take root within us so that it affects our actions. It is in our actions that our belief can be seen and where our faith is grounded. It's a great question for each of us today...where are we mentally assenting and where are we truly believing?

Reference: Romans 10:10 (New Living Testament)