Interferences To 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.