In continuation
of our discussions on the different kinds of FAITH, we want to look at
the other kinds of faith, namely:
(a) The natural human faith (Jn. 20:24-29), and (b) The supernatural faith (Rom.
4:17-21).
The seventh kind of faith is the
Thomas’ kind of faith. This is for both the saved and the unsaved. Everyone, saved or unsaved, has a natural,
human faith.
What
is Thomas’ kind of faith? This is a faith that believes only what
the human senses say. It is also called “the natural human faith, Sense
knowledge faith, or Mental Assent.”
Thomas’
kind of faith recognizes the truthfulness of God’s
Word, but it does not act on it.
Thomas’
kind of faith says, “When I see it, when I feel it, I will know I have it.” It says, “I know God’s Word is true , I know that
God’s Word about my healing, my studies, my business is true, but for some
reason, I cannot get it and I can’t understand it.” This is what they call
“Seeing is believing.” It says, “I will believe only when I seen.”
Apostle Thomas is an example of someone
that operated this kind of faith.
In John 20:24-29 Thomas said, “….Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I WILL NOT BELIEVE."
Thomas had only a natural, human faith
which says, “I’m not going to believe
unless I see and feel the print of the nails and the wound in His side” (Jn.
20:25).
Jesus said to him, “…because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they THAT
HAVE NOT SEEN, and yet have BELIEVED” (Jn. 20:29).
In order words, Thomas didn’t believe in
Jesus’ resurrection by faith as you and I believe it. Thomas believed because
he saw Jesus with his physical eyes; he
relied totally on his senses. But we believe in Jesus’ resurrection because
the Word of God says that Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father (Rom 6:4).
Why
did Thomas find it hard to believe that Jesus was alive?
Thomas knew the nails that pierced Jesus’ hands and the spare that was thrust
into His side. His physical senses told him that Jesus was stone dead. You see,
Thomas was using head knowledge.
This is what is preventing many Christians
from receiving their miracles. For instance, you want to see the physical
manifestation of your healing before you can believe that you are healed by His
stripes. You want to receive the letter of promotion before you believe that
God has promoted you.
Thomas’
kind of faith will fight every step of the way to hold you in the realm of things seen,
felt and heard, that is the realm of the physical; but we must persistently
drive to the realm of the supernatural, the realm of the miraculous, into the
Word of God until the Word becomes part of our being.
2 Corinthians 4:18 says, “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.”
Thomas’
kind of faith is not based upon what God said in
His Word. Rather it is based upon what your physical senses are telling you.
For instance, Thomas said he would not believe unless he sees first.
8. The eight kind of faith is the Abraham’s kind of faith. Unlike the “natural human faith”
which is based on what your physical senses are telling you, the “supernatural
faith” is a faith that believes with the heart [spirit-man] rather than
believing what your physical senses are telling you. This kind of faith
believes only what the Word of God says.
This is also called “the Supernatural faith, Real
faith, Heart faith, Bible faith, or Strong faith.”
This type of faith says, “If God says it is so, then it is so. In
spite of what I am seeing or feeling; in spite of contrary evidence, it is
mine. I have it now. I have it even though I can’t see it with my physical
eyes. But surely I see it with the eye of faith.”
It is the faith that says, “While
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen:
for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen
are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).
It is the faith that says, “We
walk not by sight. We walk by whatever God has said in His Word” (2
Cor. 5:7).
Supernatural
faith is believing whatever God said in His
Word with your heart [spirit-man].
Supernatural
faith in God simply says about one’s self what the Word of God says. If God
says that by His stripes I have been healed, then I am healed.
In Matthew 8:17 Jesus said, “…Himself
took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.”
In Isaiah 53:4-5 the Bible says, “Surely He [Christ] has borne
our griefs [sicknesses and diseases], and carried our sorrows [pains]. Yet we
did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But
[the truth is that] He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised
for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was put upon Him; and by
His stripes [39 stripes] we are healed.”
Grief means sicknesses and diseases. Sorrow means
pain. Sicknesses and diseases cause you pains. If you have no sickness or
disease you will not feel any pain. Jesus took away the grief that brought us
sorrow. No grief, no sorrow! Can you say, Thank you Jesus?
Another translation puts it this way, “Our
diseases did He bear Himself, and our pains He carried: while we indeed
esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”
Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him
(Jesus); He (God) hath put Him (Jesus) to grief:”
Now, begin to look back and see God lay your
sicknesses and pains on Jesus.
The Bible says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of
the law” (Gal. 3:13).
Sicknesses and pain are signs of the curse of the law.
Beloved, Christ has taken them all and nailed them to the cross at Calvary. In
Colossians 2:14 the Bible says, …and took it (them) out of the way,
nailing it (them) to His cross;”
Therefore, I don’t have them anymore. And if you are a
New Creature, you too don’t have them anymore. God is interested in both your
physical health as well as your spiritual health. In fact, when you are
spiritually healthy, you are bound to be physically healthy too.
1 Peter 2:24 the Bible says, “Who
Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to
sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes we were healed.”
Supernatural faith is
the faith that never fails.
Here you cast yourself on God, taking His Word as the absolute truth. Casting
yourself on God is casting yourself on His Word.
Supernatural faith is
laying hold of the unseen realm of hope and bringing it into the realm of
reality.
And supernatural faith grows out of the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).
Supernatural faith
anchors itself strictly on the Word of God. When your faith is strong, you not
only believe the Word but you instantly act on it, rejoicing that what God
said in His Word has already come to pass in your life. It is easy for you to
act on His Word just as Peter did [he walked on water, cast down his net etc.].
Supernatural faith is
the faith that SPEAKS and it comes to pass!
That
is the faith God used in creating the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1-3; Heb.
1:3). Every Word that God spoke during the creation came to pass because He
spoke them in faith. He knew that whatever He said must come to pass (Isa.
14:27; Isa. 55:11; Jer. 1:12; Num. 23:19). That’s supernatural faith! Isaiah
14:27 says, “God has spoken – who can change His plans?”
Jesus
defined supernatural faith in
Mark 11:23. In Mark 11:12 He was hungry and wanted to eat some fruit. But
because He saw no fruit on that tree, He said to the tree, “No man eat
fruit of thee hereafter forever” (Mk 11:14). His disciples heard Him
when He cursed the tree. After Jesus cursed the tree, it looked the same as it
was before He spoke to it. But 24 hours later, His disciples observed that the
fig tree had dried up from the roots.
This
suggests that when Jesus spoke to the tree, it died immediately from the
roots. The roots were in the ground so no one could immediately tell that
anything had happened to the tree. Though the tree looked the same, as before
Jesus spoke to it, the tree was already dead from the root. Its source of
life had been cut off.
Seeing
that the tree had withered away, the disciples were amazed. Then Peter said, “Master,
look! The tree you cursed has withered away.” Then Jesus said, “Have
the faith of God,” or “Have ‘God-kind’ of faith – the supernatural
faith.” He wanted His disciples to know that with this kind of faith, they
could do anything; they could move mountains.
Supernatural faith is
a fearless faith.
With supernatural faith you could do anything. That is why Jesus said, “To
him that believeth all things are possible” (Mk. 9:23).
That
is to say, “To him that has fearless faith, nothing shall be impossible.”
In
Mark 10:27 Jesus looking upon them saith, “With men it is impossible, but not with God:
for with God all things are possible.”
Just
like Jesus when He spoke to the fig tree, each time you release words of faith,
each time you speak forth what God has said in His Word concerning any
situation, whether you see any change immediately or not wouldn’t make any
difference. In your spirit-man, you know that the words you’ve spoken with your
mouth will surely come to pass.
Supernatural faith
does not consider the outward appearance of things. It does not consider whatever the
five senses are saying. It does not consider the circumstances. It considers
only what God has said concerning the particular situation.
“For
we walk not by sight. We walk by faith” (2 Cor. 5:7).
God has given us His Word to straighten us
out so that our believing will be right. If our thinking is right and our
believing is right, then our talking will be right. Therefore, if the Bible
says that God will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory, then
He will do it.
In Philippians 4:19 the Bible says, “And
my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ
Jesus.”
If He says He cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7), then He
really does! So you simply, and quietly, rest on the Word. In Hebrews 4:3 the
Bible says, “For we who have believed do enter that rest...” I believe so I
quietly rest on the Word regardless of evidence contrary to what God has said.
Believing God is believing His Word!
If God says, that you shall be the head
and not the tail, then it is so (Deut. 28:13-14). If God said in Hebrews 13:5-6
that He will never leave you nor forsake you. So that you can boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, and I shall not fear
what man shall do unto me!” Then no matter where you are and no matter what
you are doing at any point in time, the Lord is with you. Why? Because He said
so in His Word.
If God says that you shall know more than
your teachers, then it is so. If God says that you shall not die but live to
declare the works of the Lord, then it is so (Ps. 118:17).
SUPERNATURAL
FAITH says
the same thing the Word of God says. So you should quietly rest on God’s
Word, in spite of evidences that might prove contrary. Supernatural faith is built on God’s Word.
Therefore, meditate on the Word. Dig deeply into it. Feed on it. Then the Word
will become part of you, just as natural food becomes a part of your physical
body when you eat it. What natural food is to the physical man, the Word of God
is to the spiritual man. Meditating
on the Word will build into your spiritual man confidence and assurance.
Supernatural
faith is unaffected by sense knowledge. It has nothing to do with your understanding.
God’s Word does not make sense. It makes faith! Faith is the result of the Word
dwelling in you. I do not mean the word committed to your memory. The Bible
says that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). I mean the
Word lived, practiced, until it has become a part of you. You meditate on it.
You think deeply about it. You feed upon it. The Word becomes a very integral
part of you. It is a faith that believes without seeing, provided it is God
that said it.
Mark 11:24 says, “Therefore I say to you, whatever
things you desire [ask] when you pray, believe that you receive them,
and you will have them.”
The
Scriptures tell us about Abraham as an example of a man that exercised supernatural faith (Rom. 4:17-21).
Abraham was threatened by alarming symptoms of
childlessness. What did he do in such a shameful situation? Did he fret? Did he
consult a witch doctor? No! Rather he anchored his faith in what God said in
His word about his situation. That is supernatural faith – a faith that anchors
itself on what God has promised in His Word concerning your situation.
In spite of all odds, Abraham believed
God’s Word, considering not his own body
– his natural senses. If he didn’t consider his own body, he didn’t consider
physical sight or physical feelings. Rather he considered what God said in His
Word. Abraham did not consider his own body now dead, nor did he consider the
deadness of Sarah’s womb, but he considered God’s Word, believed it, and
anchored his faith on it in spite of all contrary evidence.
Notice what Abraham did. (1) He anchored his faith in God. No doubt, Abraham was thinking of
those things that were recorded in the early chapters of Genesis. Therefore his
faith was built on something that God did in the past as recorded in the Bible.
Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God.
(2) His faith
was not a blind faith. How? He did not ignore the utter impossibility, from
a human standpoint, of the thing God had promised. He did not disregard the
reality that his body was now dead, nor did he ignore the reality of the
deadness of Sarah’s womb. You do not deny your condition because it is real.
Childlessness is real, but it is not the truth. The only truth is the Word of
God (Jn. 17:17). Therefore, consider the truth not the reality. The reality is
temporal, but the truth is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). Notice that Abram:
- Believed in hope against hope (Rom. 4:18).
- Faced the fact that his body and that of Sarah were as good as dead (Rom. 4:19).
- Did not stagger (waver) through unbelief. “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; and
- Was strong in faith (Rom. 4:20).
What does it
mean to be strong in faith? Romans 4:20
says that Abraham gave glory to God. That’s what being strong in faith is –
giving glory to God before you see your answer manifested; thanking and
praising God before you see the answer with your physical senses. All these
facts led Abraham to a more complete trust in God. Beloved, all the trials
you’re going through will only lead you to a more complete trust in God.
Supernatural
faith thrives when it rests completely on the promises of God, especially
when the promises cannot be fulfilled from a human point of view.
It is written, “They that trust in the Lord shall not be
disappointed, not confused, not confounded, but shall be like mount Zion that
cannot be moved forever” (Ps. 125:1).
In Romans 4:21, the Bible says, “He was fully convinced
[persuaded] that God had power to do what He had promised.”
The only way you can be fully persuaded that God will
do what He has promised is through your fellowship with Him and His Word. You MUST know
Him for they that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits (Dan
11:32).
Being fully convinced means that Abraham rested in the
power and faithfulness of God. This is supernatural faith! Abraham believed according to that which was spoken by God. He
believed according to what God had said. His faith was based on the Word of
God.
I know that Abraham had God’s promise that Isaac would
be born. In fact, God didn’t say He was going to do it. He said, “I
have made thee the father of many nations” because God saw it already
done. That’s the way it is with supernatural faith. It already sees the job
done. Real faith says, “It’s mine! I have it now!” God sees the future better
than we see the past. He speaks as if it is already done, because in His sight
it is done. The Bible says that God calleth those things that be not as though
they were (Rom. 4:17).
Abraham’s physical senses told him that it was
impossible to father a nation at his age (nearly 100 years old), yet he considered not his own body.
Abraham didn’t consider the circumstances that contradicted God’s Word.
Beloved, don’t pay any attention to the physical symptoms you are seeing or
feeling no matter how threatening they may appear to be.
In that your aching condition, what do you
consider? Are you considering what the
symptoms are saying? Are you considering what the doctors are saying? Are you
considering what your senses are telling you or what the Word of God says
concerning your situation? If you are truly considering God’s Word instead of
what your senses are telling you, why are you still carrying that panadol?
Did He not say in His Word in James 5:14-16,
“Is
anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them
pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the
prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he
has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one
another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective,
fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
You
see, when you develop your faith to the point where you believe what the Word
says regardless of circumstances and physical symptoms, then you are believing
the right thing, and that’s what brings results.
Do not consider and see the wrong thing
because according to your faith it will be done unto you. Jesus is up there representing
us at the throne of God, and He is saying, “I took their place; I died for them
as their Substitute.” He didn’t die for Himself. He didn’t need to redeem
Himself because He was never lost like you and I. He died for us. He became my
Substitute. He took my sins. He bore my sicknesses. He died for me. He arose
from the dead for me. He ascended on high for me, and He is up there right now
saying, “I did that for him.” And we are to hold fast to saying the same thing
down here. That is what puts the devil on the run. Learn to focus your
attention on the TRUTH and not on
the REALITY.
I therefore,
challenge you today to deepen your knowledge in the different kinds of faith so
that you can truly live a life that pleases God. This will help you to stop considering
the magnitude of your problem, and start considering the magnitude of your God.
It will help you to stop considering your condition, and start considering what
God has promised you in His Word concerning that situation, and then rest in
His power and faithfulness. Rise and be healed!
Watch out for the next
edition of Good News from the Pulpit!
- Your friend: I. I. MADUBUNYI (Senior Pastor) @ the HQs Sept. 8th, 2019!
Promise
of God:
“They
that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Ps. 126:5).
God
shall increase your greatness, and comfort you on every side” (Ps. 71:21).
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