1. Have God's Word for what you desire to receive from God.
2. Believe God's Word.
3. Consider not the contradictory circumstances.
4. Give praise to God for the answer.
Follow these four steps and you'll always get the desired result because these are four certain or sure steps to deliverance, healing, answered prayers, or whatever it is that you are seeking from God. Then notice Thomas' faith. Thomas' faith was not based upon what God said: Thomas' faith was based upon what his own physical senses told him. For example, Thomas said he would not believe unless he could see.
So many people say, "When I see it or when I feel it then I'll know I have my petition." But that's not Bible faith. That's natural human faith and any sinner already has that kind of faith. You see, real faith in God is based upon the Word of God. Real faith in the Word says, "If God says it's true, it is." Believing God is believing His Word! I like something Smith Wigglesworth said. He said, "I can't understand God by feelings. I can't understand the Lord Jesus Christ by feelings. I can understand God the Father and Jesus Christ only by what the Word says about them. God is everything the Word says He is." Wigglesworth went on to say, "We need to get acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ through the Word."
Too many people try to get acquainted with God through feelings, and when they feel good, they think God has heard them. But if they don't feel good, they think He is not hearing them. Their faith is based on their feelings, but my faith is based upon God's Word. If God's Word says He hears me, then I know He hears me because He said so, and His Word cannot lie. In other words, if my faith is based upon my feelings, then I am just using a natural human faith. I'm trying to get spiritual results with natural human faith, and I cannot do that. I have to use scriptural faith, Bible faith, and believe God's Word. And if my faith is based upon the Word of God, then I believe the Word regardless of evidences which would satisfy my physical senses.
Too many people are trying to get Abraham's blessing with Thomas' faith, and that just won't work. We who are believers have the Abraham kind of faith because Galatians 3:29 says, "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." And Galatians 3:7 says, "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." We have the Abraham kind of faith. We're not trying to get it; we have it.
