BIG FAITH

As I have rested in the pocket of grace that God has offered me while depression’s tentacles loosen their grip around my mind, I have had valuable time soaking in more lessons about faith in the Bible.

If cancer had not assaulted me, I would never have understood the importance of faith as God sees it. I would never have understood that faith is about believing God’s Word, whether or not I see any immediate results, that faith is not hope, but complete belief that God is who He says He is and will honor every promise in the Bible (about healing and everything else). I would never have understood how much lack of faith dishonors our God.

Did Jesus get irked by those who would not believe because they doubted Him? Oh, yes. He even lambasted his disciples a few times.

We all know about the disciple Thomas, who frustrated Jesus because he refused to believe Jesus was Jesus without seeing the nail holes in his hands. He says to the disciple, "Blessed are those who HAVE NOT SEEN (the nail holes) and yet HAVE BELIEVED.” When Jesus told his followers that He was who He says He was, and did what He claimed (rise from the dead), he fully expected great and complete faith from them.

The disciples irritate Jesus just before his ascension into heaven. Mark 9:14 says, “Jesus REBUKED them for their LACK OF FAITH and their stubborn REFUSAL TO BELIEVE [the reports of] those who had seen Him after He had risen.” Jesus had no patience with wavering faith.

Did Jesus honor all those who honored Him by believing with great faith? Always. This week I read again about the centurion who tells Jesus about his suffering servant. Jesus offers to come to his home to heal him. The centurion had enough faith in just Jesus’ spoken word that he says, “Lord, I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof, but if you just say the word, my servant will be healed.” Jesus is astonished, it says, and He tells his followers, “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. And then says to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just AS YOU BELIEVED it would.”

Back to healing. The great preacher Charles Stanley says that little-faith will say, “Well, I think God could heal me. He might heal me. I’m not sure He wants to heal me. But I sure wish he would do it.” Big-faith will say, “I see God’s promises about healing in Scripture. God means what He says. If healing is what He has promised me, then it is done. I trust Him. It’s a done deal. I will thank Him in advance for it until I see the manifestation of the promise.”

I want to be a big-faith follower of my Lord. I refuse to waver. I refuse to dishonor my Savior with teetering belief based on human senses. What I can see on a PET scan has nothing to do with God’s intent to heal. I stay in big-faith mode, knowing that standing on God’s Word still heals Christians today.

The more I immerse myself in the Bible, the more promises I find about all kinds of things. The more I study and learn about what He wants for my life, the more excited I get. I intend to claim those promises and stand on them. Healing is just one of so many. How sad it would be to get to the end of my life and have God say to me, “You sure did not take advantage of all that was meant for you….it was all laid out in My Word, and you didn’t read it or learn it or claim it. Sorry.”

So I am now an avowed promise-seeker. I will search into the promises in Scripture, and believe that every word spoken is exactly what God meant for it to say, and I know I can take it to the bank. I will write the check for the promise and redeem it before I have evidence of it. Big faith. Maybe it is just that…….belief without wavering…..that will prompt my Lord to say to me those coveted words at the end of my life, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done.”