“And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.” (Luke 8:25)
“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mark 9:23)
You must notice something here, the Lord did not say “You need more faith, here, I give you more faith.”
The temptations that take you, who is responsible for taking the way out that has been offered, who is responsible for keeping their thoughts captive for Christ or their body under subjection? How many times can you recall the Lord Jesus Christ saying, “Thy faith has healed thee?” Now we come to the cry of “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)
The more prayers that are answered, the more trust we put in the Almighty, but as you have heard me say many times, to know the totality of a thing, one must understand the inverse of that thing, and so I ask this of you today, what percentage of your requests need to be answered not just for your faith to remain, but for it to grow? And I ask you this as well, why do we not see anyone with enough faith to cast trees into the sea or remove mountains, why are there millions of born-again believers going to the doctor instead of being healed simply by faith?
“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” (1st Cor. 11:30)
Do none of us have enough faith anymore, are we just to keep believing when the pain will not abate? Is our life to revolve around “Thy will be done” with a defeatist mentality, because we perceive in ourselves that we do not have enough faith?
I fear the majority of Christians are simply living a life of “That’s just the way it is, God is not going to heal me, I am just supposed to live with this until I die.” Or at best you will hear someone say, “That is why the Lord gave us doctors.”
If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, would you ever need a physician? Isn’t that what the Scriptures say? “Your faith has healed you?”
I am not speaking of persecution here, persecution only comes when we stand for righteousness sake, when we stand firm for the glory of God, for His Word and His truths. If we had enough faith, wouldn’t that faith would heal everything from a paper cut to cancer? Are physicians to be the answer to our faith in these days, are they the replacement for answered prayers when it comes to physical infirmities? Have the technological advances in these days in that area replaced your faith that God will heal you if you simply ask, and that will happen because in faith you have believed it to be so?
The Lord Himself said, “Where is your faith,” He said, “According to your faith be it unto you.” (Matt. 9:29)
What happened?
Are we meant to suffer in this way as well, “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;” (1st Peter 4:1)
Does your faith grow more in suffering or in answered prayers? That my friends is the question.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)
But not here.
You really should contemplate this letter, is it a lack of faith that keeps that pain racking your body, or is it the will of God that you remain so? “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mark 9:23)
I have no answer for you, but it would be extremely wise to consider these words offered here, for they will tell you where your faith truly lays, and why.
