Do We Actually Believe? — Stop Convincing the World and Start Convincing the Church

This teaching belongs to Sam Dunn, a mentor and a father in the faith to me, written in his own hand and dated early in 2025. I'm carrying it forward because the question he asks in it is one I've watched wreck people and heal people in equal measure. Sam puts it this way: we spend enormous energy trying to convince the world that Christianity is the way to go. He thinks we've got it backwards. We need to convince Christians that Christianity is real. When believers actually start believing, he says, the world will flock to us in droves.

His logic is hard to argue with. A true believer does what the Word says, and God pours out His blessing on that person to the point that when the world sees it, they want it. The problem isn't that the world is watching. The problem is what they see.

## Three Places Our Faith Gets Tested in Public

Sam named three ordinary situations where Christians and non-Christians look exactly the same — and that sameness, he said, is the whole problem.

**Sickness in the family.** When a Christian family puts its trust in God no matter the outcome — because they know God has their best interest in mind and always knows best — it produces a peace the world simply cannot manufacture.

**Money.** When a believer tithes, he's telling God, take care of me. And God does. A Christian who loses his job and still isn't panicking is preaching a sermon louder than any pulpit.

**Being wronged.** When someone is treated willfully and maliciously and still trusts that God has his back, he comes through victorious — but only if he actually trusts God to be on his side. As Sam put it, no situation has ever come upon you that God has not already prepared a way of escape from (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The tragedy is that the world watches us walk through these three things no differently than they do. There lies the problem.

## A Testimony I Don't Take Lightly

Sam didn't teach this from theory. He buried his seventeen-year-old son to cancer — and he says that because of his faith, the night his boy passed was the greatest blessing he has ever known. He came through financial setbacks too large to survive. He was maliciously told he was unworthy to serve God, and for a moment he believed it — until he told God, I can't live without Your Spirit on my life, and God restored him beyond measure. "God has never let me down" is not a slogan when a man like that says it.

## The Sin That Steals the Blessing

So why aren't more of us living in that blessing? Sam's answer cut me: *Could it be because we are so judgmental?* "Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself" (Romans 2:1). Every bit of pride, gossip, and judgment we carry is us passing sentence on God Himself — when He has already provided a way of escape financially, physically, and spiritually. "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition... in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3).

This is exactly what I see inside correctional facilities. The men who walk out free are the ones who stop judging — themselves and everyone else — and start believing the Word more than their own history. As Sam wrote at the bottom of his page: I have the ability to break down strongholds, change a person's mindset, and cast down anything that comes against the will of God (2 Corinthians 10:3–8). That power is real. The question is whether we believe it.

**If you're tired of a faith that looks the same as everyone else's,** reach out. Let's study it, pray over it, and watch God prove Himself real — not to the world first, but to you.