Monday, November 24, 2014

Don't Deny Reality: Have Faith in God, Not Faith in Your Faith

I'll be starting off with a scripture out of Romans 4.

Romans 4:19-21
"Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform."

This single scripture found in Romans 4 tears down the popular healing theology which says you have to believe you are already healed in order to be healed. This scripture also tears down the teachings that say illnesses are just "lying symptoms" and if a person believed the symptoms were real, then that is why they got sick or remained sick. These commonly held beliefs on healing are unbiblical.

The deadness of Abraham and Sarah's body was very real. It was nothing that Abraham or Sarah did/said or thought that made their reproductive systems unable to produce a child. Sarah had always been infertile (Genesis 11:30) and on top of that, now she was an elderly woman past any capability of carrying a child. If all that Abraham and Sarah had to do was believe that they could conceive a child at their age in order to conceive a child, then we are actually reducing the miracle that God performed here and bringing New Age "power of the mind" into our churches. This is terribly wrong and offensive to God! As we read in the scripture above, "he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform."

Abraham's faith was correctly focused on God's ability to perform the miracle He had promised. This is where we should focus our faith as well.

We simply believe that *God* is the One able to perform the miracle. Our faith is in God. It is not faith in our faith and not faith in our ability to believe that we are "already" healed. Faith is not a denial of reality either. It's seeing the reality of what is going on in our body (or in our life) and despite that, still believing the promises from God. That's real biblical faith! That's good news because you don't have to become superstitious about your words. You can simply rest in your heart that no matter what happens or what comes your way, you are still looking to Jesus.

If you are in a multiple year battle or in a battle where your sickness is progressively getting worse (or  fatal), you have to be settled about this. Otherwise as you walk this journey with the Lord, your faith in God will get shipwrecked and you will begin to focus inward and condemn yourself for not "believing right" if things get worse. I've seen it time and time again with many friends and strangers online. They have been so confused by putting their faith in their faith, their words, their declarations and their "positive confession" that they aren't even looking to God anymore. We should simply keep our focus on Jesus and not on us.

If you are believing God for a healing, it's OK to see and feel the sickness in your body. However you should, just as Abraham, be careful not to allow it to waiver your faith in God or in God's power or ability to heal. Simply continue to stand on the promise of healing that God has made to you and know that HE is the One able to perform them, regardless of how impossible your situation looks in the natural. With Abraham and Sarah, their situation literally was impossible.

Consider in Genesis 18:14, when Sarah laughed at the thought of having a child at her age, what did God reply to Abraham? “14 Is anything too difficult for the Lord?...”That was a rhetorical question of course because we know that nothing is too difficult for the Lord.

Now unbelief occurs when a person doubts God's ability or power to heal their body. These are things we may have to face and wrestle at times in our walk with God. I think that's part of the growing process and maturing in the faith. As long as we don't call it quits and walk away from the faith, I think this is a healthy process that needs to be encouraged with care.

When Peter doubted as he walked on the water, Jesus didn't just let him drown. Jesus reached out and grabbed him during his weakest moment and brought him to safety. We can trust that God will do the same for us in our weakest moments. Sadly with the way some ministers teach doubt and unbelief, you would have thought Jesus just watched Peter drown! haha

This whole post might sound a bit semantical to some, but it is really important for those who are  believing God for the impossible. Understanding that our faith is in God's ability to perform what He has promised is KEY! It takes the burden off the sick person who has wrongly been told they must pretend they are already healed or have been told they are still sick because they believed "lying symptoms". Whether the church realizes it or not, but this actually destroys the relationship between the suffering person and God. It makes God into an impersonal force who will release healing only when you finally believe "just right". It's such an awful, destructive doctrine.

As a church, we need to have more compassion and understanding, so we can build people up and bring their focus onto God instead of towards themselves. 

True faith is not about how hard you muster up a feeling or try to believe, but instead it is about WHO you believe in. 

Updated: March 2016

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