Faith’s Definition
by Rev. Elbert Willis
Introduction
In this post we will be studying the definition of faith. Our key passage is Hebrews 11:1.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I desire that you have not only a head knowledge but a heart knowledge of faith also. Therefore, I encourage you to take the time to get that knowledge of faith from your head to your heart. As long as you just have it in your head it will not produce for you because you will not be able to act upon it. You will have knowledge, but it is knowledge plus action that equals faith. K + A = F is the formula. That is, Bible knowledge plus corresponding action equals faith. If you have head knowledge of the Word in a particular area but you cannot act upon it yet, it is not faith. Now when you have the knowledge of the Word of God down in your heart as well as in your head, then you will be able to act upon that Word even when things look impossible. Until you can act upon what you believe even though it looks impossible, it is not in your heart yet.
For example, a person is believing God to heal his heart and he still has his heart pills. He has the knowledge of the Word that says he is healed, and he knows God cannot lie, but he cannot throw the pills away. He knows that he is healed, but it is a knowing in his head and not in his heart. When this knowledge drops into his heart, then he will be able to throw the pills away. In order to move in faith you need to learn to distinguish whether the Word knowledge is in your head or in your heart. The way you can tell is by observing whether or not you can act upon what you believe. When a person gets a knowing in his heart that he is healed, that heart knowledge of faith is bigger than any pain pill. The next thing he knows, he gets to the place where he has the pill, and his reason, mind, and logic tell him, “Man, you have to take the pill.” But something inside him says, “You cannot.” The next thing he knows, the Word inside him gets bigger than the outside truth. When this happens you are in faith.
It is the same, for example, as a person facing death. The Word inside him which says he is saved is bigger than death. Then he can say, “Well, if I die, I am ready to go.” He has heart knowledge of the fact that he is saved, and that truth inside him which says that when he dies he is going to heaven is bigger than death. Therefore, he is not afraid of it.
I am going to help you to learn to know the difference between head and heart knowledge. First of all, learn the difference between natural, worldly truths and faith truths. Remember, you have had two births. John 3:6 says,
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Because you have had that first birth you can operate in natural truths. Well, you have had a second birth which entitles you to operate in another set of principles, and one of those principles is faith. All your life you have been trained in natural principles. Now you come along and start learning spiritual principles, which most of the time will contradict what you have been taught all your life. What you have to realize is that these are two different schools from two different worlds, and they teach principles and truths from two different worlds. The spiritual truths always supersede the natural ones, because God existed before the natural did. If God existed before the natural, this means the spiritual laws and truths existed before the natural. This means that they are greater than the natural, because the natural was created from the spiritual laws. This also means that the spiritual truths are going to exist after the natural no longer exists.
The difficulty we have is the fact that we live in a sense world. With our five senses we contact this physical world and we have been totally trained to act upon what we see, smell, hear, taste, and feel. When you start moving in faith, you do not act upon your five senses, but you act upon what the Word of God says.
Anyone who is in a natural profession or field today will tell you that if you will follow the directions in the task you are attempting to accomplish, you will get the right outcome. Well, if you will follow God’s directions concerning what you learn about faith, I guarantee you that you will get the right outcome. Many times God’s directions will cross and contradict what you think, but this is the key. Recognize that the Bible is a spiritual book and not a natural book. Because it is not a natural book it does not give natural truths. It does not give you the fact that H2O is water, or that 2 + 2 = 4. It says,
“Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom…“ (Luke 6:38). It does not say to work hard and then you will get it. It says, “Ask, and it shall be given you…” (Matthew 7:7). Remember, you have your natural principles and subjects which are real, but the Bible is not that kind of book. You are in a whole new field now. It is a whole new ball game. This is a new concept which is totally and completely different, because it comes from a different world. The Bible is a book that came from a being from another world. That being has sent the Holy Spirit to live within you and me, to help us to learn some of the spiritual truths which will help us to be witnesses for Jesus down here in this world.
Did you ever realize how peculiar you really are? You have been born twice. How much more peculiar can you be? You have had two births, you have two father, and you are the citizen of two worlds. The whole thing from the very start will make you peculiar, so why worry about becoming more peculiar by moving in faith? Each birth entitles you to the principles of that world. The birth into this world entitles me to air, water, food, and everything that is provided in this world. However, my birth into the other world has provided the availability of the benefits of that world too. That is why this life can be such a good life with God. Most people, however, do not have it that way, because they do not have the benefits of the other world to help them. It is the icing on the cake for this life.
Chapter I
Faith Works by Love
I Corinthians 13:13 says,
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity [love].” Faith is the channel by which you please God, but love causes you to trust God. When you trust God you do not fear that He will not do what He says He will do. That love casts out the fear, and when the fear is gone, there is nothing to interfere with your faith working to get what you hoped for. Anyone who moves in faith knows that faith works by love and that love casts out fear. What is the opposite of faith? What destroys your faith? It is fear. Fear can cause you to doubt, and when you doubt your faith flees. Therefore, as love begins to flow in you it is going to cast out the fear. You will then have trust that God will provide and do for you what He says He will do, because when you really trust someone you have no fear of them disappointing you, lying to you, or deceiving you. When you learn to love God, and when you realize that He is love, that love is going to drive out all fear.
Hebrews 11:1 says,
“Now faith is.” You have to realize that faith is in the now. It is never in the future. Tomorrow you cannot breathe the same air you are breathing now. “Faith is.” It is a substance and it is real. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Chapter II
Faith does not have a Word about Sight, Feeling, Mind, or Evidence in the Visible Realm
Faith is the proof that you have something that you cannot see. It has nothing to do with sight. You do not believe with your eyes, you see with them. You do not believe with your nose, you smell with it. You do not see with your mouth, you taste with it. You do not believe with your ears, you hear with them. You do not believe with your feelings, you feel with them. You do not believe with your mind, you think with it. You believe with your heart. The heart is that spirit man inside. People have problems with faith when they want to stay in the visible realm, because faith is an invisible principle. It is an invisible force from another world, and it has nothing to do with sight. Most people say, “Well, if I could see it, I would believe.” That is not believing, that is seeing. They say, “If I could just hear a good report, I would believe.” That is not faith, that is hearing. “Well, if I could just feel better, I would believe.” That is not believing, that is feeling. “Well, Brother Willis, how will I know if I am believing with my heart?” As you continue to be diligent with the Word in faith you will get to a point where you have a knowing with your mind, but you will seem to know it from somewhere else also. It is like knowing the same thing, but you are knowing it twice. You just know that you know it but it is not in your mind. What it really is is a knowing in your heart. As you go farther along you will get to the point of having that knowing. This heart knowledge is not something that anyone can teach you. Only God can bring you to that place, and He desires to bring every one of you there. However, He will only bring you there as you are consistent and diligent with the Word.
The problem with people today in faith is that they say, “Well, I know that already.” They know it with their minds, but not with their hearts. When you know it with your heart it produces, but when you know it with just your mind, it will not produce. The knowing in the mind must be transferred to the knowing in the heart. You have to start, however, with the knowing of the mind. After you have obtained head knowledge, then you have to confess your possession until that knowledge is transferred from your head to your heart. When you speak it out and act upon that knowledge, it produces that which you believed you received when you prayed.
You must remember that if you have to see something before you are going to believe you have it, you will never get it. The best example I know of this is that if you have to see heaven before you believe you are gong there, forget it. You are not going. If you have to feel that gold up there on the streets before you believe, forget it. You are not going. In order to get there, you have to believe you are going before you ever get there. Nobody is going to get there without first believing they are gong to go before they get there. This is the faith principle. It is believing you have something before you ever get it. That is what salvation is. It is believing you are going somewhere before you get up there. If you are going to wait until you hear the angels sing up there before you believe it, you will never make it. That is why so many people never get divine healings. They say, “When I feel better, I will believe it.” That is not faith at all. Anybody can believe once the pain is gone. That is not faith, that is fact. Faith always has to operate prior to the time you get your manifestation. Once you get the fact it is no longer faith. Faith is a spiritual truth. Faith is believing you have something before you get it, so that God goes to work to get it to you. I believe I am going to heaven before I get there, so God is going to work to get me there. I have never seen heaven with my eyes, never heard it with my ears, never smelled it, tasted it, or felt it, but I believe it is there. With what do you believe that heaven really exists? You cannot have anything to prove that it is there. I believe with my heart that it exists. If I would believe it with just my head, all the pressure of this world would drive the belief out of me. That is why so many people go to churches and leave. They believe with their heads that they are saved, but they do not know in their hearts. You can line up five people and have them all pray the same prayer. Two of them will stay and three will go back into the world. The difference is that two of them will believe with their hearts and three will believe with their heads, and head knowledge will not get you saved. You have to believe with your heart.
“Well, Brother Willis, how will I know where I am believing from?” If you continue you will know. You will have that experience and you will just continue. It is like continuing being born. My grandson, Micah, is only nine months old. How can he discontinue being born? Well, it is the same with a person who has been born again into the kingdom of God and has had a heart experience with God. How are they going to discontinue being born? I know they can backslide and run away, but they have not discontinued being born. They know they have been born.
Chapter III
Faith is the Substance of Things Hoped For
Hebrews 11:1 says,
“Now faith is.” Since it is, this means that faith is a force. It is a reality, but it is an invisible force. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.”
1.
Faith has real existence in God’s sight. Now faith cannot be seen in this world. It is from another world which is invisible to the natural eye. One of these days, however, we will have an eye that will see the invisible world. The angels are here, but they are invisible. You cannot see them with the natural eye, but they are here because the Bible says, “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalms 91:11). The spirit world is real. It is more real than the natural one because it existed before this world did. If it is real, this means that it can have forces or attributes that are real too. Therefore, faith has real existence in the sight and world of God. Faith is as real to God as the chair you are sitting on is to you. You can feel the chair with your feelings, but faith is just as real to God in the spirit world. Many times when you get to the place where you believe and receive something by faith, that knowing inside you which says you have it is as real to you in your heart as are the clothes upon your back. In fact, the circumstances can get so bad that everything around you looks like total failure, yet something inside you will say, “No, I have it.” If you had two broken legs and three cancers you would still say, “I have it.” People may say, “Well, prove it to me.” You would say, “I do not have anything to prove it with. I just know I have it.” When you get something by faith, such as a physical thing, a healing, or a material thing, you just know you have it. You need to be diligent until you get that knowing. Sometimes it will not be that strong of a knowing, but other times it will be.
2.
Faith stands in place until the fact is manifested. Faith is your substitute. Faith, in the mind of God, is your car which you prayed for until you got it in the fact realm. Faith is the “substance of things hoped for.” Until you get that car, your faith is that car. Faith is real to God. Your faith is your healing in the spirit world until you get it in the natural world. Your faith is your husband’s, wife’s, momma’s, or daddy’s salvation. You hold your faith as their salvation until God prepares the field and plants the seed. Then it will be manifested. It is just the same as a seed that is growing in the ground even though you cannot see it. Your faith is out there. You cannot see it, but it is working because God says it is. Therefore, your faith is the substitute.
Faith is your healing until you get your healing in the natural realm. “How can faith be my healing?” It is your healing because it is a knowing in your heart that you are healed even though your body says you are not. That faith is your healing in your spirit man until you get it in the natural man, but have to have the knowing in the spirit man first. Now if you have to have a knowing in the natural man before you believe you have it, that is not faith. Sometimes it takes time to distinguish between the spiritual world and the natural world. Each world has to have principles, and the Bible is a principle from the spiritual world.
This is why so many people have problems. Take the walls of Jericho, for example. God’s people were walking and shouting around the walls and then they fell down. What kind of natural sense does that make? Well, that is not a natural truth. It was not a natural power that knocked the walls down. They knew what bridged the gap between the natural world and the spirit world. That is what faith is. It is the contact or channel between the two worlds. Our electric wires contact us to the force that gives is light. The water pipes contact us to the force that gives us water. Your faith contacts you with another world so you can draw the benefits of that world down here. Your faith is the channel. That is why you have to confess you have something by faith before you get it. When you say, “I believe I am healed by faith,” what you are saying is that your faith is your healing until God gets it to you.
3.
Faith is a spiritual reality of what you will later possess here. Heaven is a spiritual reality that I am going to later possess because I believe I have it now. Therefore, if you believe you are healed by faith, then your healing is faith. That is a spiritual reality and you will later possess it here. Faith is simply having a spiritual possession up there and later getting it transferred down here. It is like ordering a cassette recorder from Spiegel’s in Chicago and having them transfer it from there to here. You just simply order something from God by faith and He later transfers it to you down here. He does not have a metal cassette up there, but He transfers it by touching someone or some circumstance to get it or the money to you so that you can buy it. You may order a book from somewhere and it is transferred to you from one place to another. Well, faith is reaching God and believing you have what you prayed for so that God goes to work to transfer it to you. Your belief that you have it by faith is what He needs to work with. God has to have something to work on your behalf with, and He has chosen to use faith. When you believe in your heart that you have something, He takes that substance, that force, that faith, and He begins to go to work in the universe, on man, on circumstances or situations to get to what you believed you received when you prayed.
Mark 11:24 says,
“What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” This says you will receive it when you pray, not when you get it in the visible form. The visible is not faith. It is fact. You have to believe you receive it when you pray.
If you are having difficulty, I know what area it is in. It is in really perceiving that you have something in the spirit world. You hear with your ears what I am saying, and you try to picture and envision it, but faith is not visualizing something. It is envisioned within you. You just keep on hearing it and you pray one day and you try to picture it. You do not picture it. It is just envisioned and planted within you. This is where you just have to be diligent with the Word of God until you get to the place where you just have a knowing inside you that you have received it. No one can put that knowing in your heart except God. You cannot think and strain and make it there. What will happen is that you will hear it said so many times until your mind will get educated to,
“What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” You will say it with your mouth, and you will think it with your mind, but you have to believe it with your heart.
I can teach you the principles, but I cannot put this in your heart. I have jumped out of an airplane before. I could tell you so many times exactly what it is like to jump until you could get to the point of telling it better than I could. There would still be one difference. I have jumped. I can teach you faith until you get to the place where you can teach it as well as I can, but if you do not know it in your heart it just will not produce for you. It would be just words. However, you have to start by getting it in your head so that God can drop it into your heart. If you do not ever get the principles into your head, you will never get them into your heart.
Faith is a spiritual reality of what you will later possess here. If you received something before you prayed, that would not be faith. Faith is your invisible, spiritual possession because faith is an invisible force. God will put something in your heart, for example, our need for obtaining a piece of land to build a teaching center on. I can close my eyes and I can see it, but I know it is not in my head. There is no way I can explain it, but I just know it is not in my head. That is why when you know something in your heart, people can tell you it will not work and you can just say, “Yes, it will.” They may say, “I do not believe you.” You can confidently say, “Yes, it will.” When God puts something in your heart the whole world can say, “No,” and you can just look at them and say, “Yes.” It has to be faith, that spiritual reality in your heart.
Faith is your invisible spiritual possession. It is not visible yet and you have to see it with your spirit man. You cannot see it with the natural eye. Heaven is my invisible, spiritual possession. Because I possess it spiritually, I am going to literally possess it some day. In the same way, if you spiritually possess a healing, your loved ones saved, or a financial miracle, one day you will possess it materially. Every time you really possess something spiritually by faith, you will end up getting it. Only you can keep yourself from receiving the physical possession if you already have it by faith. God has already given it to you when you prayed. It is already yours and the only way it can be stopped from being manifested is if the devil can cut your faith line by getting you to take your eyes off God. Any time we do not get something, the only person who has stopped the prayer from being answered is our self. God has already bound Himself by His Word, which says,
“What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Therefore, when you believe with your heart that you have received something when you prayed, God has already obligated Himself to get it to you if you meet the conditions of holding your faith until it is manifested in the visible realm.
Faith is the substance of what you hope to have here. Faith is believing you received something when you prayed, and you hope to have it here in the visible form. Hope is an important part, but it is future and will not get you anything now. Faith is the channel through which you receive what you are hoping for. If you hope to have something manifested here, that is good. It keeps you going on, but you will not get it by hope. You have to get it by faith. Faith is the substance of what you hope to have here. Let us say, for example, you have believed God for a new car. You have received your car by faith when you prayed. Hope is down here, and your faith is a spiritual truth that proves you already have the car. You already have by faith what you hope to have down here.
Any time you have asked God for something, after you have prayed the prayer of faith your confession must always be, “I received it when I prayed.” It should never be, “I am looking for it,” or “I am believing I am going to get it.” Believing is future. Faith always says, “I got it.”
Chapter IV
Faith is the Evidence of Things Not Seen
Is it not peculiar to state that you can have evidence of something that is not seen? Because you can believe in your heart that you have something you cannot see is proof that you have it. If you cannot believe in your heart that you have something you cannot see, it is not faith yet.
“Now faith is…the evidence of things not seen.” This means that your faith is literal proof that you have something you cannot see. Evidence is something that is ironclad. Evidence is not something that you have heard, but it is something that you can give. Evidence is something that will prove something is so.
Your faith, with which you can believe and hold to the fact that you have something in your spirit without seeing it, is the proof that it exists. That is what you have to hold as your proof. People may say, “If I could just see the car, I would believe.” That car is not the proof. It is just a result or the manifestation of something you already had by faith.
Faith is the absolute proof that what you prayed for exists. It exists in the faith world, in the mind of God, and your faith is the evidence that it exists. It is already invisibly granted to you in God’s mind. Your faith believes that you have it. If you have it you need to know where you have it. You have it in the spirit world, in the mind of God. Therefore, the invisible has already been granted to you in God’s mind. Now you need to learn how to get it transferred from the faith world to the natural world. This is where your actions will have to come in for God to go to work to get it to you. Faith is not the evidence of the visible, but of the invisible. For example, electricity is invisible, but it is real. Turn on your television. You cannot see a picture coming through the air, but it is real on the screen. If that can be real and still have force and power, then faith is more real, and it also has force and power. You are operating in faith all the time. When you get ready to drive your car you do not raise your hood up to see if you have a motor, do you? That is just natural faith. When you close your refrigerator, you do not cut a hole in the back to see if the light goes out. How do you know it goes off? That is just faith.
Faith has two elements.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Your faith is the substance of something you do not have physically. It is something that you are hoping to get. Faith is also the “evidence of things not seen.” It is proof that you have something you cannot see. It is something that you know in your heart. Now if you just know it in your head, pressure from the devil will drive it out. But when it gets in your heart you can just say, “I know, I know, I know.”
Chapter V
Faith is Related to Two Things
Faith is related to
“things hoped for” in the future, and “things not seen,” in the invisible realm. Therefore, faith always has to be dealing with something you do not have visibly. I cannot believe God for the coat I have on. That is now. I can believe Him for another one, though. Faith is always related to something you hope to receive in the future. You get it now by faith, but it is related to your expectancy to get it manifested later. Faith is also “the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is proof that you have something that is invisible. When you have this knowing, then God goes to work to get it to you because you believe you have something before you get it. If you would visibly have it now, it would not be faith. If the pain is gone from your body, you cannot believe God for it to go away. You can only believe and exercise faith for something you hope to get later. If you hope to get it later you have to believe that you have it by faith when you pray, so that God will have a substance to work with to get to you what you believed you received when you prayed.
Chapter VI
Faith, not Hope, is God’s Designated Channel or Element of Believing
Faith is in the now, but hope is always in the future. It is looking to something. Hope is a good waiter, but it is not a believer. My hand is not my foot. My eye is not my nose. My heart is not my eye. Hope is not faith. Hope gives you expectance and assurance that God is going to do what He says He will do. It keeps you excited and helps you to hold on to what God has said, but hope is always in the future. What most people do is say, “Well, I sure hope to get it.” Whenever you see them hoping to get it, they will not get it. You do not get anything by hoping. You get it by believing. They are hoping to get it, but you can say, “I believe that I got healed when I prayed. I received it by faith and I know that I am going to get it.” When you need a healing and you pray the prayer of faith, what do you hope to get? You hope to get your healing, don’t you? Faith is the channel that you use to get the manifestation of what you are hoping for.
Hope is important. If you take away hope, you will not believe God for anything. What happens is that you start hearing the Word and hope begins to rise. The next thing you know, because of that hope, you begin to dig. You get the Word in you and you get to the place where you know that you can get what you are hoping for. You cannot get it by hoping though. You have to learn faith.
Hope needs a visible confirmation, sign, or encouragement. Faith does not have to have any sign or encouragement. Faith does not have to see anything to believe. If you have to see it to believe, that is not faith. Any time you are just hoping for something, you will be saying, “If I could just see a change, I would believe.” This means that you are not believing, but you are hoping. Hope is good, but it will not produce. It will keep you digging and staying in the Word until you learn faith.
Chapter VII
Faith has Nothing to do with Time
Hebrews 11:1 says,
“Now faith is.” Faith is present. Any time you speak in the future or even in the past tense, except to say that you have received something, it has nothing to do with faith. Faith is never future tense, because it receives when it prays. It cannot be future tense if you got it when you prayed. After faith’s prayer it is no longer “believing” but “believed.” It is not “I am going to have” but “I have.” After the prayer of faith, faith’s confession tense is past. “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Let me give you an example. “Father, in the Name of Jesus, I ask you right now to save my son. I believe right now by faith he is saved and I shall have it.” Therefore, after I have prayed the prayer of faith it is no longer believing. After I have prayed and claimed the son I cannot say, “I am believing that my son is going to be saved.” “Believing” is future tense.” I am going to have to say, “I believe that my son got saved when I prayed.” People may ask, “How is he acting now?” I would have to say, “I am not even considering that. I am calling that a lying vanity. The real truth is that he got saved when I prayed.” As you go along do not look out there in the natural. If you do you will be discouraged, so do not look at that. Just keep thanking the Father that your son got saved when you prayed. Just keep looking at God’s Word, which says he got saved when you prayed. The devil wants to get your attention off the Word. If he can get you to look at the natural and you start believing what you see, instead of what you received when you prayed, he has cut your faith. You always have to believe that you received when you prayed. You cannot look down here for the manifestation, because Who did you ask for it? Look at God, and keep looking at Him until you get it.
Once you have prayed the prayer of faith, and you keep on getting knocked around, you need to really continue in the Word to be sure you prayed the prayer of faith. As long as you are asking, “How will I know?” it is not faith yet. Faith never asks questions. Once you have been saved, you do not continue asking questions concerning your salvation. Why do you not ask questions about it? Because you know you are saved. Well, when you know you have something else, you do not have to ask questions about it either. When you get your healing or your financial needs met in your heart, just as you have salvation, then you will know you are going to get them in the natural realm.
Faith has nothing to do with time. You receive your answer when you pray. There is a time, however, between the faith answer and the fact manifestation. This has nothing to do with your answer. You received your answer when you prayed, but there is always a time period between when you get your answer and when you get your fact. If I lay my hands upon a brother or sister to be healed in the Name of Jesus, there is a time period. It may be just a second. The pain could leave the body when I say, “Be healed,” but there is a time. It can be a second or it can be longer. There is no time to a faith answer, but there is a time between the faith answer and the fact manifestation. There is a time between when you get your answer in the faith world and when God gets it to you down here in the natural world. That is where you have to learn how to hold to your confession of faith. You have to know about long-suffering and endurance against people and circumstances which come against you.
Chapter VIII
Faith Produces Action because You Already Have What You Prayed For in the Spirit World. You are not Trying to Get It
Proper action causes the invisible spiritual possession to materialize unto you. When you act right, the action is like the second side of a coin. The first side is your faith. You put your faith up and when you start acting down here corresponding to your faith, God goes to work to get to you what you already have by faith. If you do not know how to get your actions cooperating with your faith, God cannot work to manifest the fact. Anyone who has had any teaching can get their faith answer when they pray. The reason they do not always get it manifested is that they do not know how to talk and act corresponding to their faith answer in order for God to work on their behalf to get the fact to them. I know you are believing, but because you do not understand the principles, the enemy can delay your getting the manifestation.
The correct corresponding action is the cooperation God requires of you to manifest your spiritual possession. God requires something from you. You get your answer by faith, but then God requires you to act the proper way so that He can go to work to get the visible manifestation to you. If you do not act the right way, He has nothing to do. Let us say, for example, that you believe you are healed by faith. God says, “All right, I want you to act as though you are healed.” The action will contradict the natural, and that is where people often miss it. When you start acting as though you are healed when you are not, people will say you are lying. If the knowledge that you are healed is just in your head, you are lying. If it is in your heart, however, it is faith, and it will work for you.
Faith acts as if a thing is so when it is not, in order for it to be so. You believe you are healed by faith. You act as though something is when it is not, so that it will be. God takes that action to drive the pain out of your body to give you what you believe you have. If you do not act as though you have it, you will not get it. You have to act out what you believe.
Chapter IX
Faith Never Looks and Considers the Reality but the Finality
The reality may be that you have pain in your body. You do not look at the reality. You look at and act like the finality instead of the reality. If you act like the reality, your action is not corresponding with your faith. Hebrews 12:2 says,
“…for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” What joy? Jesus saw the finality. That is why He endured the cross. Likewise, you can endure the pain because you see the finality. You are healed by faith. Your body is hurting, but you have joy inside you because you are healed. Jesus endured the cross. He knew about the nails, and He knew they were going to stick the sword into Him. He endured all that with joy, but He did not look at it. His flesh hurt, but He did not look at that. He endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him.
You can endure these things for the joy that is set before you. You can endure the scorn, the ridicule, the mockery, and the pain, for the joy that is set before you by standing in faith upon God’s Word.
