Becoming a Man of Unwavering Faith (10 page)

In a church in Houston, Texas, I prayed for an elderly woman who was badly afflicted with arthritis. She was
stooped and hobbled along, using a cane. She could not lift her hands much higher than her waist. As she stood before me, I commanded the sickness to leave in the Name of Jesus! She hobbled away, seeming no better.

Three days later, as I continued the meetings, she started to come to the front again to be prayed for. I told her not to come, because she had been healed. She had been delivered because God promised to keep His Word. When I said these things, she turned and hobbled back to her seat.

After a few minutes, a commotion began in the audience. I looked and saw a cane waving in the air. The elderly lady had decided to act as though she was healed. She started running up and down the aisle and around the church with her arms high in the air.
When she acted, God kept His Word and she was healed!

In one of our citywide campaigns, a pastor and I made a visit to a home to pray for a woman who had injured her back. She had lost her sense of balance and could not stand or walk without falling over. She was flat on her back in bed, and whenever she opened her eyes, she said the room would go around in circles. This had been going on for about ten weeks.

Based upon James 5:14–15, we anointed her with oil and commanded the spirit of infirmity to leave. We said, “Be healed in the Name of Jesus.” After we had laid hands
on her, we fully expected her to recover. I asked her if she thought God meant what He said, and she said yes. Then I told her that people who had been healed had no business in bed. I said, “Rise up and walk in the Name of Jesus!” She looked at me quizzically, but realized I was serious. Up she came with a determination to act as though God told her the truth. She stumbled a little, but then started walking normally. When she
acted,
she was healed.

In crowds numbering into the multiplied thousands, we have watched the marvelous power of God work as people
acted their faith
. I have seen all manner of sickness and disease healed as people acted on God’s Word.

Dare to do the impossible! Dare to believe God’s Word and do what circumstances say you cannot do!

I read the story of a dog that wouldn’t stop chasing cars, so its owner chained it to a tree. When the dog raced out after the next car, it jerked its head terribly, and after several more painful attempts gave up. He would simply walk to the end of the chain and stop. He was unhappy, but he knew it was impossible to go one step farther.

One day his master decided the dog had learned its lesson and unbuckled the chain from the collar. The dog, though, continued to walk out to his former limits and
sit and long for freedom. Little did he know that all he had to do was to
take one step beyond what he felt was his limitation to discover his deliverance!

Freed, but not free. Delivered, but not enjoying it.

Many of us are like that. For years we have had sicknesses, fears, and limitations. Bitter experiences, apart from God’s power, have convinced us that we can do just so much and no more.

But now you have heard the Gospel and know the good news. Your Master came all the way from heaven to let the oppressed go free. He came to set the captives free. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). He broke the power of Satan!

His living words now are: “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” “Be made whole!” “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity!”

But thousands sit looking sad, wishing for deliverance, when all they need to do is to take one step that seems impossible and discover that with God all things are possible!

You are free!
You will discover it to be so by acting as though God told you the truth.

As a man of faith, begin now to act your faith. You will not waver. You will not fail. He who acts on the Word of God has his miracle.

I
n the continuing story of the prophet Elijah and his servant that we have been studying, after all they went through, “The sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came on and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. The power of the L
ORD
came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel” (1 Kings 18:45–46
NIV
).

As demonstrated by Elijah, the seventh quality of a man of unwavering faith is that he may begin with nothing, but he’ll end up with the hand of God upon him, enabling him to do mighty exploits because of what he’s seen God do in the hour of his trial of faith.

Elijah never gave up. He started with nothing, and he kept praying and believing until he saw the hand-size cloud. He kept on believing until the rain came, and then, the Bible states, the hand of God came upon him, and he
ran across the Valley of Jezreel. He outran the horses of Ahab! Elijah experienced the victory because he endured the test of faith. He didn’t give up.

Have you been tempted to give up? I want to tell you, there are good days ahead of you. I see you running with the hand of God on you. I see you walking in victory in your spiritual life.

Fight on! Believe the Word of God. Don’t give up, because victory is just ahead of you.

One of the greatest men of faith in the Bible was the Roman centurion who came to Jesus for the healing of his servant. If you do what he did by faith, you will receive what you need from God.

“Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ The centurion answered and said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof.
But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.
For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, “Go,” and he goes; and to another, “Come,” and he comes; and to my servant, “Do this,” and
he does it.’ When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Then Jesus said to the centurion,
‘Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.’ And his servant was healed that same hour
” (Matthew 8:8–13).

What did the centurion do that caused Jesus to marvel? He said,
“But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.”

He said in plain language, “I do not need the actual physical presence of Jesus. All I need is His spoken Word. If I have His spoken Word, I will believe it whether I see Jesus or not.” Jesus responded by stating that He had not found such great faith in all Israel!

Faith is acting on the spoken Word of the Lord.

We have the spoken Word—
the Bible
. The centurion was willing to take the
words
of Jesus at face value. You will receive what he did when you are willing to do the same.

The centurion said in effect, “If Jesus says my servant is healed, that settles it for me. He is healed! No more worrying!”

Somebody near the centurion may have said, “But… what about the symptoms?” I hear him laugh them off with the words, “Those things are unreliable. I have the Word of the One who cannot lie. My servant shall live!”

Many people admire the Word, study the Word, and defend the Word, but they will not act on it as truth.

In this case, a man stepped out in faith on the spoken Word of Jesus. Will you do the same? Will you act on the Word God has given?

Isn’t the Word of Jesus enough? Why are you worried? Do you think God has lied to you? Do you think His Word is no good? Face the facts. Either God lied or He told you the truth!

As I mentioned previously, when we prayed for our daughter, who was born with a crippling disease similar to cerebral palsy, we could see no change in her, but we
thanked
God for healing her. On what basis? Certainly not our five senses. Our eyes told us the opposite. The only basis we had was the Word of God. God kept His Word!
He always does!
“I am ready to perform My word” (Jeremiah 1:12).

When the widow of Zarephath obeyed the word of the Lord and prepared a cake for the prophet Elijah, she had
nothing and was preparing to gather some sticks and cook her last meal and die with her son! Based upon the promise that the “bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the L
ORD
sends rain on the earth” (1 Kings 17:14), she went ahead despite the physical evidence and fixed her last meal for the man of God. As a result, every day throughout that famine she experienced miracles of provision.

Jesus said, “Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:24). He said to believe it right when you pray—while you can still see the swelling, feel the fear and anxiety, and are conscious of all the symptoms.
Believe what God said right in the face of all contrary sense knowledge, and you shall have the things for which you asked Him.

There are still signs of life in a tree immediately after it has been cut down. We do not worry because we know it has
been cut down and all these signs of life will pass away in due time. When the Lord has cut down your disease, insecurity, or poverty, it is dead. Some of the symptoms may linger to convince you it is still alive and God has failed, but you know better. You confess the Word. You say what God says! The symptoms cry out that nothing has changed, but you stand with God. You confess what is true. You believe
when you pray
that you have received. God said that if you will believe His Word against all these other things, you shall have your request! When you have no basis for your victory but the Word of God, that is
real faith!

Confess what God says!

You may say, “If I could only see a little change.” Faith is the evidence of things
not seen
. You don’t see your victory with your natural eyes, but with your spiritual eyes of faith. That evidence is from One who cannot lie. You have the Word of God.

In Mark 11:12–24, Jesus rebuked a fig tree, but nothing happened immediately. I can imagine Peter and John lingering behind to see what happens to the tree. As they wait, they grow more and more disappointed.
Nothing about the tree has changed.
I can hear Peter say,
“John, Jesus has performed many miracles, but I believe He failed this time. I can’t see any change.”

The next day, however, they were amazed to see the tree dried up from the roots (Mark 11:20).

There are two parts to that tree—the
seen
and the
unseen.
Peter could see the outer part of the tree, but he couldn’t see the root system, which is the source of the tree’s life.

Now here is something to always remember. The withering, powerful, prevailing, authoritative Word of Jesus had its first effect in the realm Peter couldn’t see—the life of the tree. If Peter could have seen as Jesus saw, he would have known at the instant He spoke that
the roots withered and died!

In the realm you cannot see, God is working. The apostle Paul said, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18).

As the centurion did, take Jesus at His Word! Believe He told you the truth! Act as though He told you the truth!

When our son Paul was a little boy, he had warts all
over his body. My wife, Dodie, tried in every way she knew to treat them so they would go away. It dawned on her one day that she could pray for him to be healed. She laid her hands on him and commanded the life of those warts to leave in the Name of Jesus. She knew the Word of God had taken effect in the unseen realm, though the warts still could be seen clearly. We looked at them day by day and said in the face of their continued presence, “Paul is healed in the Name of Jesus.” We rejoiced and praised God that Paul was healed. About two weeks later, our son came in all excited. Several of the warts had disappeared. Soon all of them were gone!

We received what the centurion did because we did what he did—we believed and confessed the Word of God.