Bible Faith

Here's a little formula for the faith that pleases God. You can make this Bible faith work for you. It is the same faith that Abraham used and it worked for him because it is faith that is based on what God has said.

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.

'In Jesus' Name' - Not 'For Jesus' Sake'

Many people conclude their prayers by saying, "For Jesus' sake." But we are not to pray that way. There is a difference between praying in the Name of Jesus and praying for the sake of Jesus. We are to pray in the Name of Jesus. What's the difference between praying for Jesus' sake and in His Name? There is quite a difference. When you go to God, and you ask Him to do something for Jesus' sake, you're asking that it be done to help Jesus - on your credit. Can't you see how foolish that sounds? In the first place, Jesus doesn't need the help. And in the second place, you don't have any credit to guarantee the answer to your prayer if He did! No, it's the other way around. We need the help and Jesus has the credit.

I don't mean to imply that people do this consciously when they add, "For Jesus' sake" to their prayers. But that is the way it sounds in heaven. Even if Jesus did need our help, you and I don't have any standing in heaven that would guarantee help for Him. We are the ones who need the help. It's for our sake that we are praying. And Jesus has the standing or the credit in heaven that enables us to come to God in His Name and receive those things we need. For example, if you go to the bank with a friend's check and ask the cashier to cash that check, the cashier will ask if you have the money on deposit in your own account to guarantee the amount of the check. If you don't, he'll refuse to cash it. When you pray, "For Jesus' sake," it's like trying to cash a check when there is no money in your account because you don't have the credit in heaven - Jesus does.

But if you go to the bank with a check endorsed by a wealthy man who has an account at that bank, then there will be no questions asked. The cashier will hand over the money.

Jesus is our "credit" in heaven, so to speak: He has all the credit we could ever need to get "our check cashed" - our prayers answered. And when God hears His children pray in faith in the Name of Jesus, He responds to their prayers based on Jesus' credit or Jesus' standing in heaven. In that mighty Name, God gives us the answer to our prayers. If I have a stomachache, for example, and I am praying for healing, I wouldn't ask God to heal me for Jesus' sake - to help Jesus. I don't want to be healed for Him. It's my stomach that needs help, not His! I'm the one who is hurting. It's for my sake, on Jesus' credit.

Similarly, if I need $100, and I ask the Father to help me get this money for Jesus' sake, I would be praying foolishly because Jesus does not need the $100. The money is for my sake, not His. Jesus doesn't need $100; I do. I need the $100 to help me, so it's for my sake, on Jesus' credit. Many an honest prayer fails because of folks ending their prayers, "For Jesus' sake." If you have been doing that, stop it. It makes a lot of difference whether or not our prayers are scripturally based. That's the reason we fail many times in our praying. Our approach is all wrong. Peter and John said when they were at the Gate Beautiful, "... why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?" (Acts 3:12). In other words, it isn't by the believer's own power or holiness that he gets an answer to prayer.

You don't get your prayers answered because you're good either. You get an answer to prayer because of Jesus - and because of your standing in Jesus. Thank God. Jesus has a standing in Heaven. He is the only way to approach the Father. You can't get there any other way. Thank God, in Jesus' Name we can come boldly to the throne of God (Heb. 4:16). Let's use a little sense and go as wise children, using the mighty Name of Jesus which He has given us. Jesus gave us the right and the authority to use His Name.

Raised From the Bed of Sickness

Kenneth E. Hagin stories - I was born again on April 22, 1933, at twenty minutes to eight o'clock in the south bedroom of 405 North College Street in McKinney, Texas. I was raised up from the bed of sickness on the second Tuesday of August 1934, after spending sixteen long months flat on my back with two terminal organic heart conditions and an incurable blood disease. And my body was almost totally paralyzed.

When I first started reading the Word of God on the bed of sickness, Grandma would prop the Bible up in front of me as I lay there on my bed. I could only read for about ten minutes at a time — after that I could hardly see. Then that was all I could read for the day.

The next day I would read for another ten or fifteen minutes. After a few weeks of reading like that, I got so I could read for an hour at a time; eventually I could read for as long as I liked. As a child, I had been brought up going to Sunday school; I can't remember the first time I went to church. Nor can I remember the first time I ever read the Bible. It seemed I had prayed all of my life, yet I had never been born again until April 22, 1933.

You see, you can be religious and yet not really be a born-again child of God. But when you are born again, the very same Bible that you have been reading looks different. The Bible becomes clear and easy to understand when you are born again. And as I read Grandma's Bible, I found that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).

The doctors had said I could die at any time, so when I began reading the Bible, I began reading in the New Testament. I reasoned, I might not be alive ten minutes from now, so I will utilize this ten minutes, or whatever time I have, and I will start reading in the New Testament.

I began reading in Matthew 1:1. When I got to Mark 11:24,I read, ". . . What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." From the first time I read that verse, I never forgot it. I didn't take time to memorize it; it just branded itself on my mind, so to speak, because Mark 11:24 was my answer for healing.

MARK 11:23,24
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, B e thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

However, immediately after I read Mark 11:23 and 24, the devil hopped on my shoulder and said, "Yes, but divine healing has been done away with, you know."

I said, "Well, thank God, faith hasn't been done away with! This scripture says, '. . . What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe . . .' (Mark 11:24). I have never heard anyone say that believing and faith have been done away with."

"Yes, but healing has. You know all that healing business has been done away with."

I said to the devil, "What about Mark chapter 5? In Mark chapter 5, Jesus said to the woman with the issue of blood, '. . . Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole . . .' [Mark 5:34]. Mr. Devil, if her faith made her whole, my faith will make me whole." And, thank God, it did!

At that time, I didn't know of anyone else in the whole world who believed in divine healing besides me. There was no Full Gospel church in my town at the time, and I had never heard healing preached. There weren't any Christian radio programs such as we have today; at least, if there were, I didn't know about them.

After my healing, I began my ministry just as a young Baptist boy preacher. When I heard that Full Gospel people preached on healing too, I began to fellowship with them because fellowshipping with those of like-precious faith was just like getting a spiritual shot in the arm. It built up my faith.

The Full Gospel folks preached some things I didn't quite understand or altogether agree with at that time, such as the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but I put up with that to have a little fellowship around the doctrine of healing!

Spiritual Gifts Will Exalt Jesus

Paul also said to the Church at Corinth, "Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led" (1 Cor. 12:2). These folks had previously worshipped idols and in this idol worship, motivated by the wrong spirit, they would say a lot of things that were in error.

For instance, Church history tells us that some of these folks would come into the Christian assembly and when the Spirit of God began to manifest Himself, these people would yield to a wrong spirit and say things under the influence of the wrong spirit.

In fact, some of them would even rise up in the services when the gifts of utterance were in operation and they would say that Jesus was accursed. And the Bible says that no one speaking by the Spirit of God would call Jesus accursed.

1 CORINTHIANS 12:3
3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that NO MAN SPEAKING BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD CALLETH JESUS ACCURSED: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

No, Paul said that when the Holy Spirit is in manifestation, He will make Jesus Lord. If an utterance gift, that is, a vocal gift — prophecy, divers kinds of tongues, or the interpretation of tongues — is in manifestation, then, of course, it will be clear by what is said that Jesus is Lord.

If the other gifts are in manifestation, they will always uplift the Lordship of Jesus, not the lordship of some man. They will not attract attention to some man, but rather to Christ. You can be sure that if someone is operating in what appears to be one of the vocal gifts, and calls Jesus accursed or speaks against Him in any way, then he's not speaking by the Holy Spirit.

Then Paul said in First Corinthians 12:3 that no man can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. In other words, Paul was saying that if someone is speaking by the right spirit — by the Holy Spirit — then what he says will exalt the Name of Jesus.

Once in a meeting while I was praying for folks for healing, I sensed that someone in the prayer line had a wrong spirit. I knew within my own spirit who this person was before she ever stood in front of me to be prayed for.

When she stepped up in front of me for prayer, I asked her, "Are you a Christian?" She replied that she belonged to a particular church.

I said, "Well, you can belong to any church and still not be a Christian. You have to be born again."

"Oh, I am saved and filled with the Holy Ghost," she said. "Do you want to hear me speak in tongues?" Then she started saying something that sounded like tongues.

I said, "Sister, say this prayer after me from your heart." I prayed a prayer to God the Father and she repeated the words after me. Then I said, "I acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as Your Son, and I acknowledge that He is come in the flesh."

But when I said that, she said, "Jesus Christ is not Your Son and He is not come in the flesh." It was immediately apparent that wasn't the right spirit speaking.

Those tongues she was rattling off — some kind of "gibberish" — weren't given by the Spirit of God. I tried two or three times to get her to repeat that prayer after me. Finally, she said, "Something on the inside of me won't let me say what you said."

"I know it," I said. "Do you want to be free from it?"

"I sure do!" she answered. I cast that spirit out of her in the Name of Jesus. Then I had her pray the sinner's prayer and she was born again. She was then filled with the Holy Spirit and went home speaking in tongues.

This woman was saying, "I am saved, I am born again, and I am filled with the Holy Ghost," but she wasn't at all. People can make a lot of statements, but that doesn't necessarily make them true. When the Spirit of God is in manifestation, He will make Jesus Lord. The wrong spirit won't acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and won't say that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus and the Feeding of the Five Thousand

We see the working of miracles in the New Testament when Jesus took the little boy's lunch and fed five thousand with it (John 6:5-14). I am sometimes amazed at the way some folks — even educated folks — try to explain away the Bible.

For example, I was reading after a fellow once who had all kinds of initials on the end of his name — X, Y, Z, Ph.D., and so on! Please understand that I am not against education. But sometimes people can educate their heads at the expense of educating their hearts.

This particular intellectual I was reading after was trying to explain away the miracles in the Bible. He explained the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand with the little boy's loaves of bread by saying, "The loaves of bread in those days were bigger than they are now"!

If he had really read this account in the Bible, he would have noticed that it was a little boy's lunch (John 6:9). In the first place, it is difficult to imagine that a little boy could have carried enough bread out there to have fed five thousand. In the second place, it is difficult to imagine that he had planned to eat alt of that for lunch himself!

No, it was the working of a miracle that fed five thousand with just a little boy's lunch. The disciples even gathered up twelve remaining basketfuls when they were finished eating (John 6:13)!

Jesus Ministered as a Man Anointed by the Holy Spirit

Jesus Himself ministered not as the Son of God but as a man anointed by the Holy Ghost. Jesus was just as much the Son of God when He was twenty-five as He was the Son of God when He was thirty years old. Yet at twenty-five years old, He had not healed a single person; not one miracle of healing had been wrought under His ministry prior to His receiving the anointing of the Holy Spirit at the age of thirty.

And Jesus was just as much the Son of God when He was twenty-nine years old as He was when He was thirty. Yet at the age of twenty-nine, not one single person was healed in His ministry, nor had He wrought one miracle of healing.

Even when Jesus was thirty years of age, on the day before Jesus was baptized by John in the River Jordan and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him to anoint Him to minister, Jesus was just as much the Son of God as He was after His baptism.

Yet until Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit, He never healed a single person. Before Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit, there was no manifestation of the power of God operating in His ministry. It was only after the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove in order to anoint Him to minister that the gifts of the Spirit began to be manifest in His ministry. In fact, Jesus Himself said, ". . . the Father that dwelleth in me, HE doeth the works" ( John 14:10). He never did claim to do them Himself or on His own. He said, "My Father in Me, He does the works." How did He do them? Through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus stood up and read in His hometown synagogue, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me . . ." (Luke 4:18). Then Peter, preaching to Cornelius and his household, said, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him "(Acts 10:38). Although Jesus had always been the Son of God, He never healed anyone until after He was anointed with the Holy Ghost and power.

This should prove conclusively that Jesus didn't heal the sick by some power that was inherent in Him as the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity. Rather, He healed the sick just as anyone else called of God would minister to the sick today — by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, by the manifestation of these gifts of healings, and by the preaching of the Word of God. The Word of God tells us in the Book of John that Christ had the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). Therefore, we would see a full manifestation of spiritual gifts operating in Jesus' ministry that we wouldn't see in anyone else's ministry because, as John 3:34 infers, Jesus had the Spirit without measure. No other person has the Spirit without measure.

However, it seems to me that John 3:34 infers that the entire Body of Christ has the same measure of the Spirit collectively as Jesus had individually. Therefore, just one person would not have the same measure of success in ministering even the gifts of healings that Jesus had in His earth walk because He had the Spirit without measure.

Having the Spirit without measure, Jesus would have the manifestation of all the gifts of the Spirit in His earth walk, except tongues and interpretation, which are exclusive to the dispensation of the church age which Jesus ushered in. Of course, all the gifts of healings would be included in the spiritual gifts which were manifested in Jesus' ministry.

Understanding the Name of Jesus

"Understanding the Name of Jesus" by Kenneth E. Hagin.