How to Tell If You’re in Faith or Not
With all the sad-sack stories floating around about So-and-So being in faith and dying anyway, you need to know if you’re really in faith or not. Otherwise, you can end up kidding yourself (as so many do), thinking that you’re in faith when you’ve really just mentally agreed to some doctrinal truths. There is a difference between intellectually agreeing that healing belongs to you and actually receiving it. This discussion should help you locate yourself.
1. Are You Wondering Whether You’re in Faith or Not?
If so, you’re not! You don’t wonder if you are really saved, do you? No, you don’t, because you are in faith as far as that is concerned. No one would be able to convince you that you are not in faith, and you don’t spend any time wondering whether you are “in faith” for your salvation.
In fact, if you’re a Christian and someone asked you, “Are you saved?” you would not even stop for a second to think about it, would you? No, you’d immediately say “Yes,” because that’s what you believe in your heart. If you’ve really received your healing, you wouldn’t stop to think about that either – you know that you’ve received it and it’s an “instinctive” reaction to say, “Yes, I have received my healing.” When you really believe something in your heart, you don’t have to check with your head to figure out if that’s what you believe.
The other questions here apply to you if you honestly believe that you are in faith, and you aren’t wondering about it. They serve as a check-up to see if you really are in Bible faith for your healing.
2. Can You Quote Specific Scriptures to Back Up What You Say You Believe?
So many kid themselves into thinking they’re “in faith” when they have no Scripture to stand on. Faith is not based on feeling like God heard your prayer. Faith is not based on a physical sensation when you pray. Faith comes by hearing God’s Word; therefore, faith must be based solely upon God’s Word. If you can’t quote chapter and verse to prove your healing, you’re not in faith. If you don’t know for sure that Christ bore your sicknesses to relieve you of having to suffer them, you have no real basis for believing for healing. You cannot trust the word of a man who says that he knows God wants to heal you. You must know what God says for yourself. So here’s the test – what does God say about your healing? If you think that there is any possibility that God would turn you down when you come to Him for healing, you are not truly standing on Scripture and you are not in real faith.
3. Are You Still Praying About Your Healing?
If so, you are not in faith for your healing. The prayer of faith does not “bombard the gates of heaven.” You pray it once and that settles it. Once you believe that you receive your healing, any subsequent prayers will be thanksgiving and praise because you have received your healing. If you aren’t thanking God for what you already have, you don’t have it! If you’re still praying for your healing, you haven’t believed that you’ve received it yet. If I gave you $200, would you continue to ask me to give you that $200? Even if I wired it into your bank account and you had no natural evidence (yet) that I had done so, you would not ask me to give you that money after I told you that I deposited it into your account. So it is with your healing. If you’ve received it from God, you’re no longer asking Him for it.
I’ve lost count of the people over the years who’ve begged me, “Please promise you’ll keep praying for me.” That is a giveaway that they are not in faith at all. If they were, they’d be rejoicing over what they had received, not asking people to continue to pray that they would get it.
4. Are You Rejoicing That You Have Received Your Healing, Just as if You Felt Better Already?
If you really believe you have received your healing, you should be rejoicing just as if you felt better already. You know you have received your healing and you won’t have to be sick anymore. You rejoice in your victory over the sickness.
If you are delaying your rejoicing until you feel better, you probably don’t really believe that the healing is yours right now, so you are not in faith.
5. Are You Worried About Your Condition?
Hebrews 4:3 says that we who believe have entered into rest. If you’re worried, you haven’t entered into rest, and you don’t really believe. That’s strong, but it’s true! If you’re worried about whether you will ever be normal again, whether you’ll be able to work and pay your bills, whether you’ll ever be pain-free, etc., you are not in faith. It’s not that you have no faith; it’s that you’re allowing fear to override your faith. If you’re still worrying, you’re wavering – between fear and faith. This is known as being “double-minded,” which prevents you from receiving anything (James 1:5-8).
6. Are You Walking in God’s Joy and Peace?
Paul prayed in Romans 15:13: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing....” If you have God’s joy and peace, you are probably in faith. If you are depressed and agitated, you are not really believing. “No joy” and “no peace” are giveaways of “not believing.” Check your joy and peace level right now and you’ll know if you’re in faith or not.
7. Are You Telling People That You Have Received Your Healing?
Real faith is both in your heart and in your mouth. If you have the “same spirit of faith” as Paul, you believe, and therefore you speak (2 Corinthians 4:13). Be honest. If you are secretly thinking, “I’ve received this healing, but I don’t want to commit myself to that fact publicly by telling anyone that I have done so,” you are not in faith and you have not received your healing. Jesus said that out of the abundance of your heart your mouth speaks. If having received your healing isn’t coming out of your mouth, it isn’t in your heart.
As pointed out elsewhere, it is not a lie to say that you have prayed and received your healing. It could be a lie to say that your body is not currently sick, but you have every right to proclaim a greater truth that will override the facts of your current physical condition. It is never a lie to quote the Word of Truth, which says that Jesus has “surely borne your sicknesses and carried your pains” and “by His stripes you were healed.”
Just as we would not accept the notion that a person is born again if he has never confessed Jesus as his Lord before men, we cannot accept the notion that you have received your healing if you are unwilling to say in front of other people that you have it right now.
8. Are You Expecting God to Heal You at Some Point in the Future?
If so, you have not received anything. You are hoping for your healing. You have not believed for it yet. You cannot “receive something in the future” when you pray. The literal Greek word for receive means take. If you say that you’re going to receive something in the future, it means that you intend to take something in the future, which means that you haven’t taken it yet. You have to receive it now. The manifestation may be in the future, but you have to receive it (with your spirit) now in order for the manifestation to occur. If you are waiting to feel different before you believe anything, you may never get healed.
9. Are You Preoccupied with Wondering When the Manifestation Will Occur?
Beware of checking your body every ten minutes “to see if your healing has manifested yet.” Abraham had strong faith, and he “considered not” his body and Sarah’s body. If you are constantly considering your body, either you are in very weak faith and in danger of caving in, or you were never in faith to begin with.
10. Are You Planning to Go to the Doctor to Find Out Whether or Not You’re Healed?
If you expect the doctor to tell you whether or not you’re healed, you haven’t received anything. A person who is in faith doesn’t visit the doctor to see if he’s healed; he visits the doctor to confirm that he’s healed! He lets the Word of God settle the issue for him, not the word of a doctor.
11. Are Your Mental Plans Consistent with Being Healed or with Staying Sick?
Faith without works is dead. If you are in faith for your healing, you are not thinking of “Plan B,” “Plan C,” and so on. You are not thinking of how you should sell your business because you’ll never be fit to run it again. You are not calling your lawyer to amend your will. (Nothing against wills, but I think you understand what I’m saying.) You are not debating which relative should care for your children because you won’t be able to. You are not telling your wife to call DownCo Discount Morticians to get an economical pre-arrangement for your upcoming demise. Instead, you are planning all the wonderful things you will be able to do because you are healed. You are thinking of how you will be able to testify to the Lord’s goodness to sinners. You are thinking of how beautiful your life will be without sickness.
In other words, you see a future with health, not a future with sickness. This principle applies even to minor ailments like the flu. If you say you have believed that you have received your healing, but you keep thinking about how you will now rot in bed for four days and stay home from work, you are not in faith. If you believed that you had received your healing, you would see yourself going back to work and being productive and healthy. I have found that this test is one of the best indicators of whether you’re in faith or just playing mental games. A good rule of thumb is that you won’t see something on the outside that you don’t see on the inside first.
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