“Big dreams require deep convictions. the heights of your accomplishments will never exceed the depth of your convictions.”- Mark Batterson
In Chapter 30 (“Keep Calm and Carry On”), the concluding chapter of If, Mark Batterson stresses that you must live according to your convictions if you expect to make a difference. Next, Batterson offers four descriptors of deep convictions, aka core convictions.
1. Blood, sweat, and tears provide the writing implements for core convictions. The font, Pastor Batterson adds, often is written in our flesh. As a result, adversity steels our conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
2. Experiences we’d never want to go through again teach core convictions. Yet, we would never trade those experiences for anything in the world. A college lecture hall is not the place to absorb core convictions. Life’s toughest professors- pain, grief, disappointment, and failure- teach deep convictions.
3. Convictions come at a cost, but the value added is inestimable. The closing words of Romans 8 carry great weight.
4. Core convictions are your no ifs, ands, or buts about it convictions. Mark asks: “What are you willing to go to the grave for? What will you stake your reputation on?
Romans 8:38-39 reminds us that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. When anything goes wrong, Mark notes, this one conviction makes everything right.” Finally, Mark asks you to think about how much your earthly parents love you- they ‘love you more.’ But, parental love pales in comparison to God’s love, as Pastor Batterson concludes:
” . . . just imagine how much the heavenly Father loves you. Actually, you can’t imagine it, because it’s beyond what you can ask or imagine. And perhaps that’s Paul’s point after all. God loves you more. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
Today’s question: What are your core, or deep convictions? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: the new addition to the Annotated Bibliography, If