Faith And Healing
In earlier lessons, I gave you kind of the "big three" main reasons why people aren't healed; things that kind of shut off the flow of grace. Those were curses, pacts with the devil, and coming under the judgment of God. Now I am going to talk about unbelief, which is just as real of a hindrance to healing.
I want to talk about walking in faith. Let's discover how to overcome the unbelief that keeps us from walking in faith to receive what God wants to give us. One day we were ministering to people at the end of our service. And I was praying for one certain person. Other people were getting touched and healed around this person, but this person's condition didn't seem to change at all. And as they walked off, I asked them, "what is going on? Has anything changed for you?" And they said, "Nothing happened to me; I wasn't healed." Then they added this comment, "I guess I just don't have enough faith."
Something inside of me went "Arrrr!" and I thought "You don't know, that is not it."
Do you hear the self condemnation in those words? "I just don't have enough faith?" In other words, "if I am not healed, I am the problem."
And it may very well be that this person struggles with the area of faith. And it may very well be that this person may have some hindrances that may prevent them from walking in healing. But I am not going to put that upon the person and say, "Well, if you are not healed, the problem is that you just don't have enough faith."
Unfortunately, I hear that all the time. There is a stream of Christianity that believes 'if you are not touched, it is because you don't have enough faith. If you only had enough faith, you would get your healing.' That repulses me because most people who have that mentality believe they have to mentally psyche themselves up to the place to where something can take place. They are not saying that God has given them a word and that they need to act upon that word. Their reaction is that they have to work it up. And they think once they get to the place in which they actually believe it, then they will have faith.
That is not the type of faith the Bible talks about. Let me tell you what faith is and what faith is not.
What is Faith?
Faith is not psyching yourself up mentally in order to believe something. That reminds me of the story of the three preachers that were in a boat fishing one day. They were fishing and visiting and all of a sudden, one of them said, "I am getting low on bait." So he stepped out of the boat onto the water, walked across the water, went to the shore, got the bait, and walked on top of the water, got back in the boat and continued to fish. They started visiting again until the second preacher said, "I am getting low on bait too." So he stepped out of the boat and he walked across the water and he got some bait, and walked back across the water and got back in the boat. The third pastor was thinking, "These guys have faith! I haven't seen so much faith. I have as much faith as those guys. I know I do. I know I have as much faith. I know these guys. They don't have more faith than I do. So I have to try this now." So he said, "I'm getting low on bait." He told himself, "I know I can do this." He stood up and said to himself, "I know I can. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can." He stepped out of the boat, but he simply went under. He crawled back into the boat and said, "Now I am going to try it again. I know I can walk on water." He began to psyche himself up, and then he stepped out again, and again he sunk. Finally the first guy says to the second guy, "Do you think we should tell him where the rocks are?"
A lot of times people think that is what faith is -- just psyching oneself up. Have you ever done this? Have you ever went to the swimming pool or the ocean and said, "O.K., Lord, let's see whether we can try this walking on water thing." Faith is not mentally psyching yourself up to believe you can do something and if you can mentally believe it. Kind of like, "I can fly, I can fly, I can fly." I don't recommend jumping off the church next Sunday afternoon. Faith is not mentally psyching yourself up for things.
Let me tell you what faith is. Faith is a gift from God. God gives it. When you look in the Bible at all the people who had faith, most of these people didn't have any previous knowledge of God at all. Yet they had faith for healing. Where did that come from? Did they muster that up? Did they go, "I know I can be healed. I know I can be healed. Now open my eyes." How did this thing work? It was a gift of God. God gave them the faith. He gave it to them.
Faith is a gift from God. Faith is also an action word. Faith is something that you do, something that you live out. Faith is not just mental knowledge. Faith is something that has application in your life. Faith is a choice that we make. In other words, I choose to have faith. It is a choice that we make.
Faith is something that we also can grow in. It can be quenched. It can be stifled. But it can also be grown and it can be nurtured. I believe Jesus looked around for faith. The Bible said that Jesus did only what He saw the Father doing. I think that Jesus oftentimes looked around and saw where faith was. When He saw where faith was, He saw what the Father was doing, because the Father was giving the gift of faith to those who would receive it. I believe it is an act of God's giving and an act of us receiving. God gives faith and we receive faith. I believe that is how it works. Jesus simply acted according to faith. And what faith did was to activate the power of God.
Jesus and Faith and Healing
I did a study on faith, and I began to look at all the times where Jesus talked about faith and I was amazed. There were a lot of verses. Here are a few examples:
In Luke 5:17-25, someone brought a paralytic, lying on a mat, to Jesus. When He saw their faith, He healed the man. It wasn't the faith of the man who was healed, but of those who brought him to Jesus. It is possible to come and not have any faith -- but the faith of those who pray, or even the faith of someone who brought you, can bring healing. Isn't that good? If a friend brings you to a service for healing and your own faith is so weak that you can't rely on it, so rely on the faith of the one who brought you. Healing that can come from that.
Jesus turned and saw the woman who touched him in Matt 9:22. Then he said, "take courage daughter, your faith has healed you." And the women was healed from that moment.
In Matt 9:29, He touched two blind men's eyes and said, "According to your faith it will be done to you." We are talking about people who had no faith when they first walked up, and suddenly when they were with Jesus, they had it.
In Matt 15:28, Jesus answered, "Women, you have great faith, your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. Here is another example. It wasn't her daughter's faith that brought the healing, it was her faith. Because of her faith, her daughter was healed.
To another he said, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering" (Mark 5:34). To another, He said, "'Go, your faith has healed you' and immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road" (Mark 10:52). Then there is Luke 17:19, "Then He said, 'Rise and go, your faith has made you well." Luke 18:42: Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight. Your faith has healed you'."
You can see how important faith is for healing. God wants us to have faith in Him. And when faith is present, faith activates the power of God. When faith is absent, there seems to be a cloud over things which quenches what God does.
When Jesus went to His home town of Nazareth, scripture says this about this event in Mark 6:4-6: "He told them a prophet is honored everywhere except in his own home town and among his relatives and his own family. And because of their unbelief, He couldn't do any mighty miracles among them except to place His hands on a few sick people and heal them." I love that part: He couldn't do any mighty miracles, He just healed a few. He was amazed at their unbelief. Obviously it was pretty high.
And Jesus went out from village to village teaching. I believe that had more to do with the rejection of Jesus than anything else. If you can't receive Jesus, you can't receive what Jesus has to give, and they were rejecting Him. You can see the significance and the importance of faith.
Rhema Faith
Faith and Our Spirit
Let me tell you how faith happens. Faith is the ability to receive from God and act on what has been received. Most of can relate to faith in relationship to when we were saved, when we gave our hearts to Jesus. What happened then was a Spirit-thing. It began with the Spirit. God's Spirit speaks to our spirit, telling us that we need to be saved. We know we are a sinner because God's Spirit convicts us of our sin. There is conviction on the inside down in the heart. It is not so much a mind thing, it is a heart thing. Then God speaks to our spirit and says, "Jesus Christ is the only way. He is the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me." We know that in our spirit. Then we act on what we know in our spirits. In the case of salvation, that means that we ask Jesus to come into our lives to be the Lord and the boss of our life, the savior of our life. And whenever we ask Him to come in, He does.
That's saving faith, and God gives us saving faith. Let me tell you, it doesn't make sense to the mind, does it? If you sit down and try to think this thing out, does it make sense. Well, you know he had to die on the cross and He had to shed His blood, but if you begin to think this thing out with your mind, it just doesn't make sense. But something in your spirit rises up and it says, "Yes, that's the way it is."
And that's the way faith comes. Faith comes from your heart up to your mind. The way it works, God starts in your spirit and then begins to move to your mind. He doesn't start with your mind and make His way to your spirit because your mind sometimes moves away from faith. The mind tries to think through and rationalizes things and it tries to understand things. And the things of the spirit are not usually understood by the mind. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 talks about the mind of Christ and about the way the mysteries of God and the wonderful things of God are simply understood by the simple.
He said the very same thing in Matthew chapter 11, that God takes the most astounding things of the kingdom and begins to reveal them to those who are very simple & childlike. Profound things. But you see, we start off with the spirit. The spirit receives first from God and then the mind follows. We don't start with the mind and then move to the spirit. That is the way faith begins to move. It starts from the inside. It starts with the spirit. And then there is something within our spirit that comes in agreement with what God has said or with what God is doing. There is an inner witness that begins to rise up within us because we receive from Him. Then we begin to act upon the things we receive from Him -- and that is faith. Faith is simply receiving it into our spirit. Letting that rule our mind in how we think, and then acting on it. That's faith.
The Rhema Word of God
Hebrews 11:1 gives us about the best definition of faith: "Faith is being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see." I'm sure, and I don't see it, but I know it is there. God has spoken into my spirit and I know it is true. Romans 10:17 says, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." It is interesting that the word "word" there is not talking about the logos or the written word.
It is the Greek word "rhema," which means the spoken living word of God. God first of all gives the written word. You can read the written word of God and not let the spoken word speak into your spirit. There are a lot of people who have read the Bible and not allowed it to speak into their spirit. But when the rhema word comes alongside of the written word, it comes alive, and it becomes living. It comes to be a part of what we believe. If the word is deposited and our spirit comes into agreement with what it was given, then faith rises up because that was spoken in my spirit -- not just spoken to my ears, not just read with my eyes -- it begins to penetrate and move into my spirit and my spirit has an agreement with that.
That is the place and the origin where faith comes, where God speaks the word. And then that word is acted upon. If it is not acted upon, then it is not real or genuine faith. James 2:17 tells us, "even so, faith, if it has no works is dead, being by itself." So faith begins in our spirit and we know it and then we act upon it.
When you have saving faith, you believe that when you die, you are going to go to heaven. Well, how do you know? Well first of all I read the Word and that Word begins to come alive to me. It begins to rise up within me until I know it down in my heart. I know when I cross the threshold of death to the other side, I know I am going to be in heaven. I know it because 2 Cor 5:8 says that to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord. Now people who don't have saving faith can read that. There's nothing there. But when I read that, that written word jumps in my spirit, it becomes alive. It is true and I know it and I act upon it -- and I give my life, I give my heart to God. I haven't been to heaven. But I know it's there and so do you. Well how do you know? I just know. Have you seen it? Well no. Well then, how do you know? I just know -- it is called faith. God speaks that into your spirit and you know it. How do you know? I just do, it is just there. That's faith.
Faith That Walks On Water
On that one occasion when Jesus did walk on the water, He told them, "Guys, go ahead and I will catch up to you." They were probably thinking, "How is He going to do this?" Then they were in the boat and they were crossing the sea. And Jesus walked on the water and He almost caught up to them and He was really close to the boat. At first, they freaked out and then they recognized Him and said, "Oh, I think it is Jesus." Finally, Peter, the bold one in the group said, "Lord if it is You, tell me to come on out." So the Lord said, "O.K! Come on, Pete. Hop on out of the boat." So Peter did it without thinking, because all he had at that moment was the spirit. God spoke the work, "Come!" and his spirit went "Yes!" He got out and began to act on what was in his spirit, and he ended up walking on the water according to his spirit (but not according to his mind). Then his mind kicked in. He realized that people don't walk on water. This is not natural or normal. People don't do this. He began to look around. He began to sink.
What happened when Peter's brain kicked in? All of a sudden, he began to look around him and think, "This isn't supposed to be." And then he began to sink.
Jesus came up to him and grabbed his hand and pulled him out. Jesus said these words, and I don't believe it was a harsh rebuke. I don't think He was on Peter's case. I think He said it in a loving way. Because immediately Jesus reached out His hand, it says in Matt. 14, and caught Peter. Obviously he didn't sink all the way. Jesus said, "Your faith is small. Why did you doubt?" I don't think he meant it in a harsh way: 'You stupid idiot, Why in the world did you doubt this time?' I think it was more like "Come on, Peter, why did you doubt? You know you were walking. Look at you. Now you're sinking." Jesus was a loving redeemer.
Rhema Faith In The Face Of Difficulty
On another occasion, in Mark 4, Jesus had told His disciples that they were all going over to the other side. So they all hopped in the boat and started towards the other side. And a storm rose up.
When God says that you are going to the other side, you are going to the other side; you can count on it. You are going to the other side. When Jesus wants to go to the other side, there is nothing that is going to stop Him from going to the other side. The Word of God went out. "We are going to the other side."
The storm came up and the disciples freaked out. Jesus was asleep -- He was taking a nap. The rocking of the boat on the water was kind of nice, like rocking Himself to sleep. The storm was going up and the boat was rocking up and down. The disciples freaked out and were sure they were going to die, I can see them running to Jesus and saying, "Oh no, we are going to die, we are going to die, we are going to die. Wake up, Jesus, don't you realize we are going to die? Get up, wake up." Jesus got up and looked around and gave a big yawn. Then He said, "Why are you so afraid? You still have no faith?" Then He spoke to the storm and told it to be quiet and it was quiet. Then He went back and finished His nap.
God had said, "We're going to the other side. That was the word that was spoken to their spirit. That was the word that was spoken to them by the word of God Himself. "We are going to the other side." But in the midst of that all of a sudden everything began to rise up around them. They got their eyes off of the word that was spoken by the Word of God, and they got their eyes on what they saw around them. They saw the storm and they began to feel things around them. What they felt and what He said were not in agreement -- so they went with what they felt and what they saw and what they sensed instead of going on what God Himself spoke to them.
Faith means that I am going to travel along and move ahead with what God has spoken - regardless of what storm I face, regardless of what wind comes against me. And regardless of what wave slaps against me, I am going to move ahead and move along with God. God said, "We are going to the other side," so I know we will get there. That's faith.
Faith means that I do not develop my truth from my own senses, but I develop my truth from my own spirit. God begins to speak, and we act upon that. What God said and what I feel that makes sense may not be in agreement. But faith is when we live by the spirit, not our physical senses. Faith is the assurance of what God has said and what God has spoken regardless of my feelings - regardless of what it looks like on the outside.
You Can Build Faith And You Can Kill It
Preparing Ourselves For Faith
Mark 9:14-24 records an occasion where Jesus had to give a very strong rebuke to some of His disciples. There was a small child, a young boy that was demonized. The disciples did their best to get this demon out, but nothing was working. After a while, the father got frustrated with the lack of results. So he decided he was going to take the boy to the "big gun," Jesus. He said, "Jesus I took this boy to your disciples, and they couldn't do anything." And then Jesus had these real harsh words to say. He said, "You stubborn, faithless people. How long must I be with you until you believe? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me."
I read that and I thought, "Come on, Jesus, cut these guys some slack. Those are some pretty harsh words; that was a stinging rebuke." Now I think the Lord gave those words because the disciples were no longer novices at this time. They were not new to healing and deliverance. These guys were the most trained, experienced, professional healers and deliverers that there were. These guys were doing this type of ministry all of the time. Much of the time that they were with Jesus, they cast out demons, they prayed for the sick. These guys should have known what was going on. And Jesus looked at them and said, "You have a big one here, and you were unable to get this big one out." So He gave them a very stinging harsh rebuke to reveal their heart. And it brought about a great humility in these disciples.
Matt. 17:19 says, "Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, 'Why could we not cast it out?' And He said to them, 'Because of the littleness of your faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it shall move and nothing shall be impossible to you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and by fasting.'"
I believe this scripture is describing faith as something that we can grow in. He was telling the disciples that it doesn't take a whole lot to get this thing done, but that they do need to grow in their faith. He was saying, "There needs to be some fasting and prayer to get you ready for this." Obviously they could not do an immediate fast for this. "Oh no, we have a big one, let's go fast for 10 minutes. And then we will get this thing out." In the midst of it, you can't make the decision to fast right then.
I believe that Jesus was telling them that there is a lifestyle that we must have in order to increase the faith of our life. Fasting and prayer is a part of that. Fasting and prayer builds up our authority and our faith so that it can be exercised on the day that you need it. We need to get ready, to get prepared. Some of us are not going to be ready when the big things come, because we have not put in our time preparing ourselves -- fasting and praying, increasing the authority that God has given us to see great things be done.
There is no doubt that as your heart is prepared, there is a greater agreement in your spirit of what God can do. Spending time with God increases your confidence in God, as your spirit is open to Him. Sometimes faith is quenched. Sometimes there are things that dilute and pollute our faith. There are things that keep us from listening to the Spirit. These things keep us from receiving from the Lord. Remember, faith is our capacity to receive from God and to act upon it.
Faith Killers
We spent the last two lessons talking about how important faith is. There are things that interfere with faith, and I would like to take a look at them. This includes
- a "prove it to me" attitude
- looking at the problem instead of at the solution
- fear
- rejecting the availability of God's grace
We will look at the "prove it to me" attitude now, and we will look at the other three in our next lesson.
If our capacity to receive is hindered or quenched, then we are not going to receive and then we can't act. And there are things that I call faith killers; things that kill faith, that quench faith, or that bring about unbelief. I am going to give you four that I think are significant in relationship to healing.
A 'PROVE IT TO ME' ATTITUDE
The first of these faith killers is the "prove it to me" attitude. This attitude says, "I am not going to believe it until you prove it to me. Come on, prove to me that you are God. Prove to me that you care."
That's bad. Do any of you like it when your spouse says, "Prove that you love me." Do you like that? Come on. It makes you sick. And God can do this, and may do it in His grace. But then again, God is not about "I have to prove it. For them to have faith, I have to prove it." God is not like that.
When a person has a "prove it to me' attitude I think they are lazy. They are not willing to do the work to open up their spirit. The work is to pursue and hear the Word and then to hang onto the word of God that He speaks. Some people want God to show them a miracle and just give them the faith, to just do the miracle and just prove it to them. In other words, they are trying to take a short-cut. It is an excuse for not listening to the Spirit.
God may choose to do that, but if He does, it is because He is just absolutely gracious. In the Bible, there are a lot of times when God chose not to do the requested miracle. One of those times was when Jesus was hanging on the cross. Those religious people, who saw miracle after miracle after miracle, asked Him for one more miracle. Matt 27:42 records, " 'He saved others,' they scoffed, 'but He can't save Himself. So He is the king of Israel, is He? Let Him come down from the cross and we will believe in Him.'" They were asking Jesus to prove that He was God by coming down from the cross. And He chose not to do that miracle for them.
When they brought Him to Herod, prior to that time, Herod said, "Do one of those miracles for me. Do one of those -- a healing or something. Do a miracle." Herod looked on Jesus almost as if He were some circus, you know, a Barnum and Bailey thing. He's not like that.
Matt. 12:38 gives another example: "One day some of the teachers of the religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and they said, 'Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove that you are from God.'" If Jesus had done what they asked, they still would not have believed it. In fact I did not give you the next verse. In verse 39 He called them "an evil and faithless generation." That is what He calls a people who would ask for a miraculous sign. These same people saw it all the time because Jesus did a lot of miracles. But they couldn't believe it and they couldn't receive it.
Jesus said this in John 4:48, "Unless you people see miracles, miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe." Some people want to see something, and God may be gracious and God may show something. We always ask God to show something. That's a good thing. But if you are going to base your faith on it, you might be waiting a while.
Now I think we are all a little susceptible to this one -- even Jesus' disciples were. They all got a harsh rebuke from the Lord Jesus because they didn't believe. Immediately after He was raised, people came running to the disciples claiming to have seen Jesus alive, and none of them believed their claims. In Mark 16:14, He rebukes all the disciples because He had told them He was going to be raised from the dead and then when it happened, they did not believe it.
But the person who really got the bad marks on this was Thomas. He was one of the guys who wasn't there when everyone else was there. And we always give Thomas the bad rap. I believe that had several of the other guys not been there when Jesus was there, they would have done the same thing. But even one of the Lord's disciples struggled with this area. This is John 20:25-29, "They told Thomas, 'We have seen the Lord!' But He replied, 'I won't believe it unless I see the nail wounds in His hands, put my fingers into them and place my hand into the wound in His side' Eight days later the disciples were together again and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, but suddenly as before, Jesus was standing among them and He said, 'Peace be with you.' And He said to Thomas," (what do you think Thomas' self talk was? "Busted man, I am busted now. Oh man!") "'Just put your finger here and see My hands. Put your hand in the wound in My side. Don't be faithless any longer. Believe!' 'My Lord and my God,' Thomas exclaimed." I love Jesus' words on this next part: "You believe, Thomas, because you have seen Me. Blessed are those who haven't seen Me and believe anyway."
And that's us. He is talking about us in that verse, in Matt 20:29. We believe. Faith can't always be contingent upon proof. God may give proof in His grace. But we have to hang in there with the word God spoke into our spirit. Sometimes that is the only thing that carries us on -- the word that is spoken.
Faith Killers
There are four things that are particularly good at tearing down faith instead of building it up. The first faith killer is a "prove it to me" attitude. We already looked at that in our previous lesson. So let's move on to examine the other three.
LOOKING AT THE PROBLEM INSTEAD OF AT THE SOLUTION
A second faith killer is when we keep our eyes on the symptoms rather than on the healer, especially in regard to healing. Some say, "God told me, spoke to me about healing, but I am looking at the symptoms. The symptoms are still here, so obviously I am not healed." It could be that God has healed you and now your job is to contend for this -- to pursue this, and move ahead into this.
A lot of times, we fix our eyes on the symptoms and we say, "Man, look at this. I still have them. It must not have worked. It must not have taken." I just think of Heidi Baker's testimony. As she was about to leave for Africa, the doctors told her that she would die if she went. But she said, "God gave me a word that I would be alive, that I would be used for revival." They told her that she would die because she had multiple sclerosis and there were not adequate facilities in Mozambique to treat her. But Heidi focused on God's word of life instead of on the doctors' words of death. She was so frail and weak that she would fall down when she walked around her missions compound. And those orphan children would go over to her and lay their hands on her and pray for hours over her. Heidi did not operate based on what she felt. She did not operate based upon the symptoms. She continued and continued to persevere and she pursued and pursued the word that God had given her. And she was eventually totally and completely healed.
God gave Heidi the word. If she had lived by her symptoms, she would have died. You see that? She did not live according to the symptoms. She lived according to the rhema word of God and not according to the symptoms.
Likewise, when God speaks into our spirits and tells us that He has healed us, we have to take His word over our symptoms. We have to believe that God has given us that word and then we have to move ahead based upon God's promise to us. The flesh will crawl up and shout, "You're not healed, look at those symptoms. You still have them. God didn't heal you. He didn't touch you." And the accuser will come in and hit you with those words left and right. It becomes very tempting to agree with those voices, to say, "You're right. I'm not healed. Oh, God, it didn't work. Why didn't you heal me?" And God says, "I did. I did. Claim it. Walk in it."
We can't live according to what we see. We have to live according to the word that was given to us. We need to proceed according to that word and contend for it and fight for it. If it doesn't happen immediately, don't settle for that. Don't settle for anything short of God's promise. Don't settle for, "Oh, it didn't work." If you can't see it, go after it. Fight for it, based upon the word, not upon what you see.
FEAR
The third faith killer is when we live by fear. Living in fear is a great killer of faith. Faith and fear are similar in their dimensions. Both of these project into the future. Faith is an assurance of things to come. Fear is a dread of things to come. They are similar in their dimension. When fear is present, it kills faith.
Faith is trust. Faith is submission to what was spoken to our spirit. Fear kills that. Job said this about fear, "What I have feared has come upon me. What I have dreaded has happened to me" (Job 3:25). And that is so true because fear opens the door for what we fear to happen. Where there is fear, there is no faith. There is no trust in God. You are walking out from under the protective hand of God. When you walk in fear, you walk out of the will of God for God did not give you a spirit of fear. God has given you a gift of faith.
GOD DOESN'T HEAL TODAY
The fourth faith killer is when we reject the availability of God's grace for healing, when we say that God doesn't do that stuff today. Or you may believe in healing for others, but don't believe that God will heal you. "God doesn't do that stuff with me. He will do it with anyone else but me." When we think this way, we reject His grace.
I am always amazed when I hang out with some people who believe God doesn't heal any more. Obviously, we don't get along very well. I am always amazed, how when it is time for prayer, they have these prayer requests: "I want you to pray for the people who are sick." I mean, why are they bringing their names up for healing if they don't believe in those things any more? Why are they requesting prayer for this?
Some people reject God's willingness to move in their own lives for good. That kills faith. They may say, "Well I'm not worthy." But healing is not an issue of being worthy. Nobody is worthy. It is an issue of God's choice. God chooses. He wants to. It is not an issue of earning it or disserving it. It is an issue of His choice. And if you don't think God wants to touch you, you can't receive a thing, because you are killing it before it even gets to your heart. You are killing it before it even gets to your spirit.
Let's look at Luke 17.5 "The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith.' " Have you ever prayed that prayer, Lord, increase my faith? I want to have great faith. The disciples knew the significance of faith so their cry to Jesus was, "God, increase our faith."
And this was His response to them. He said, "If you have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'be uprooted and planted in the sea' and it will obey you" (Luke 17:6). Now they might have been thinking, "We ask you to increase and you tell us about a tree?!" But He is really talking about a seed -- the mustard seed. It is so small. So in other words Jesus is saying that it doesn't take a whole lot to get a lot done. And I believe that He was telling His disciples, "You already have it. It is already there. It is already planted in your spirit. It doesn't have to be very big to get a lot of results."
And I think the Lord would say to us today, "It is in you. The mustard seed faith is already there." We are asking for a walnut sized seed, or maybe a coconut sized seed of faith. I believe God says, "I have given you enough to take care of whatever you need. You have the seed."
Why are you trying to get something that is already there? God has given you what you need. You simply have to get in tune with your spirit. Now, this doesn't mean that you throw out your brain. But it means that your brain needs to submit to your spirit. You need to let the voice of your spirit rise up when the Spirit of God speaks to you. Remove the hindrances that keep you from hearing His voice and let the spirit of God rise up. It is there. And then act it out, walk it out.
For some of you, God has given you enough stuff that you already know. You are just afraid to do it. That fear comes in and you go, "What if He doesn't come through?" You act and you'll see.
A Prayer For Faith
Let's pray....
God, we ask You to take what You have planted within us as we say, Lord, increase our faith. Lord, that we will begin to direct our eyes to the things that You have planted into our spirits. Lord, there is already so much that You have told us that we haven't even acted upon. So much that You have given us. So Lord we ask You now, just let us get in tune with You, more in tune with Your spirit.
Lord, we pray that You will just begin to break off of us every assignment that the enemy has to keep us from focusing our attention upon You. Oh Lord Jesus, begin to break it all off; that "prove it to me" attitude and that misery mindset. We ask You to break it off and take if off of us in Jesus name.
Lord, allow us to act according to our spirit. And Father, please help us to get free from sickness by recognizing that our symptoms are not where the focus needs to be. Help us focus on You and on Your healing. Help turn our eyes away from those symptoms and turn our eyes to You, regardless of what we feel or what we sense or what we see. Empower us to stand upon that, contend for that, to fight the devil for that. Lord, we are going to fight our flesh for that. We are going to bring our bodies under submission to the spirit and we are going to continue to hang in there and contend for what Your word has spoken to our spirit.
Lord give us the patience and the endurance. Just like Heidi talked about how she contended for her healing for two years and then You came through. Father we just pray that You will refocus our eyes.
Lord, I know that in the midst of pain and anguish it is hard to keep our eyes focused. Lord Jesus, You also said that You would not allow us to go through anything that You would not give us the grace to endure, go through, and overcome. Lord, I just pray that You will keep our eyes and our focus upon You. Lord I pray that You will break off every spirit of fear, being afraid of what others might say, afraid of the future, afraid of things out there that haven't even happened yet. Oh Lord, replace that with trust. You are greater than anything that is out there, and You are the only security in our future.
Lord, speak into our spirit the foundation, the passion, to heal. Make Your desire to heal real to us so that we can claim it for our lives.