Faith Is an Action Word
A lot of Christians fail to understand that faith is a definite, purposeful act of the heart. It is not a mental exercise. Accepting something as fact is not faith. That’s merely giving mental assent. It’s reasoning with your mind. You can mentally acknowledge that something is true and still never really believe it in your heart.
Real Bible faith is a matter of the heart, and it carries with it God-given responsibilities.
A man once went to Jesus for some help with his son. “Master,” he called out to Jesus, “I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away…” (Mark 9:17-18). Then he challenged Jesus with this statement: “If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us” (verse 22). When the father pleaded for compassion, Jesus threw the responsibility back on him, saying, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (verse 23).
The boy’s father was trying to get Jesus to do his believing for him. But Jesus cannot do that. Finally the man broke down in tears and cried out, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (verse 24). He was believing in his heart, yet he was having trouble with it in his head. His heart was saying, I believe, I believe, I believe! But his mind was resisting. Had this man known Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding,” there would have been no problem with his head. He could have trusted more in his heart and less in his head.
In the end, when the father cried out in faith, “Lord, I believe,” he enabled Jesus to cast the deaf and dumb spirit out of his son and the boy was healed. Jesus will do the work for you, but He cannot do the believing for you. You have to do that. But remember, heart faith grows out of God’s Word.
If you want to condition your heart to be in the habit of believing, then you must give God’s Word first place in your life. You must feed it into your heart constantly. And you have to realize that the Word is actually God speaking to you…personally. It’s not just a lot of information for your head to carry around. Then, you must make the quality decision that your body and all its physical senses will never override the Word of God in any given situation. If your body screams, I’m sick! I’m sick! I’m sick!…don’t allow that natural, physical evidence to be the final authority about what you believe. Go to the Word as your final authority. And the Word says, “By [Jesus’] stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). So abide in the Word and let the Word abide in you (John 15:7).
It will get out of your head and into your heart. It will get you out of the impossible and into the possible. You will get into the habit of living on the believing side of life
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Monday, August 16th 2010 at 6:34PM
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