VAST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BELIEF AND FAITH Your belief system, when locked and unyielding, can literally paralyze any spiritual growth. Belief is a mental activity. With our mind, we hold onto certain things as being true.  It’s a cerebral assent.  A saying “yes” to what we have been taught. It is a set of rules or creeds that we agree to believe in- what the church says, or what mom and dad say is true- or society, or the government, or some other… Mom says don’t touch the stove- it’s hot. Maybe you didn’t believe that once and you did touch the stove.  Ouch!  So now, whether the stove is really hot or not, you don’t touch it. We believed that the world was flat and you could fall off the edge of it. We believed that if you sailed west from Europe you’d get to China- completely unaware that there was another huge continent in the way.   We believed that that heavenly bodies circled around the earth. Along come Galileo with the news that the earth and other planets circled the sun…..And for that piece of truth, the Inquisition found him suspected of heresy, he was forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.   We believed that if God had wanted us…….