Interferences To Healing

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.