There are specific truths that create a foundation for believing.
First, God is not a respecter of persons. Everyone can operate in a faith that overcomes. It's not the privilege of a special few, but the right of every child of God.
Second, God never lies. What He has promised He will fulfill. God is never arbitrary. His Kingdom operates by law.
Third, God never changes. God's healing power is as real, and as available, right now as it was two thousand years ago when Jesus walked the earth.
And finally, faith is a product of the spirit of man. It's not a product of the mind or the reason. The Bible always locates faith in the heart of a man, in the inner man.
Faith becomes an unconscious possession when we stand firm on this foundation. It gives you boldness to act. You can face impossibilities without fear.
You can never act boldly on the Word of God until you are confident that it will be upheld. You must know that God will honor His Word. Faith alone will not heal you. Faith alone will not save you. Faith is the confidence that God will honor His Word; but until you act on that faith it profits you nothing. James teaches that faith without corresponding actions is dead, (James 2:17). What you believe remains powerless until you release it through words or acts.
Unless you are fully persuaded (Romans 4:21) that God desires for everyone to live free from sickness and disease, there remains doubt as to whether healing will always come, or always be granted; and as long as doubt remains you have no right to think that you will receive anything from the Lord, (James 1:6,7).
To receive from God you must ask in faith (meaning that you are fully assured of having received the answer) or you will not receive, (Mark 11:23). Faith believes that the thing promised has been received before any physical manifestation occurs.
Faith praises God before it sees the answer
When a man believes something, he acts on his belief. Others consider his actions bold or mysterious only because they lack the same faith to act. They don't see the foundation of his faith. They don't understand what or why he believes.
If we are to act boldly there must be adequate evidence and testimony to impart faith. The integrity of God and His Word must be placed above reproach. Either God can be trusted or He cannot.
We find the source of faith in Romans 10:17, for Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Our faith has its ground on the integrity of the Word of God. Faith for healing is not based on the experiences of others, nor upon what we think God may or may not do, but upon what He has clearly said He will do.
God will never require you to exercise faith unless He has first promised to perform it, for faith is confidence that God will do what He has said He will do.
Faith and patience are necessary requirements for you to see the promises of God fulfilled in your life, (Hebrews 6:12). Being healed through the faith of another is the exception and not the rule. We should abide by the rule and not the exception. If anyone will place a priority on the Word of God, faith will be produced. We know that all things are possible to that man who will believe.
God Has No Favorites
It is most important to realize that God has no favorites. Faith is available to all, and anyone can exercise a faith that receives.
Jesus said, whosoever. That means you.
Remember, Mark 11:24 -- Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
We know that without faith it is impossible to please Him, (Hebrews 11:6) therefore we must be able to exercise faith. It's available to all.
Paul prayed that every believer would walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, (Colossians 1:10). We cannot please Him without faith.
Later, Paul encourages us to praise God, who made us able to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light, (Colossians 1:12). You have been given the ability to walk in everything that God has for you. God would never ask you to do something that you cannot do. You have the ability to partake of His inheritance prepared for you.
God was not pleased when people were overthrown in the wilderness, (1 Corinthians 10:5). He was not pleased when they failed. God wants you to succeed and have victory. He wants you to have everything that Jesus purchased for you through His death on the cross.
The entire purpose for faith is to enable the gospel blessing to be made available to all. God's plan "is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, (Romans 4:16).
God has no favorites. Five times the Bible teaches us that God is not a respecter of persons, (2 Samuel 14:14; Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:25). What He has done for one, He will do for all, upon the basis of His promises. He has bound Himself by His Word, and His promises are for all.
God Never Changes
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, (Hebrews 13:8).
Religious tradition often teaches that the day of miracles has past. They teach that healing stopped with the last of the twelve Apostles.
But Jesus Christ has not passed away, nor has His heart of compassion changed in any way. James wrote, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, (James 1:17). If God has granted gifts of healing in the past, then He must grant them now. Is it possible that God's love is biased, or are His blessings arbitrary?
A thousand times, no! There is no variableness, neither shadow of turning in His character or in His will.
God Is Not Arbitrary
Some believe that God sometimes heals, and at other times, by His wisdom withholds His healing power, perhaps for His child to learn some lesson. They declare He is Sovereign; but this is not being Sovereign, it is being arbitrary.
If God ever, even once, withheld His healing power then no one, not even one, can say that God ever healed on the basis of His promises. Otherwise, should He heal one by promise, and withhold healing from another, it is no promise but deceit.
For God to fulfill His promise for one person, and deny it for another, would remove the possibility of our ever having faith. Faith is based on the promise of God, knowing that God will do what He said He will do.
Some have said, You never know what God is going to do. I say, You always know what God is going to do, because He has given us His Word. God has made His will and His ways known to those who accept Him at His Word.
God is Sovereign. This word means, the one who exercises supreme authority. God is the Supreme authority in our lives, and it is our trust in His authority that gives us the faith to receive His promises. Many have said that there is nothing that God cannot do; but there are many things that God cannot do because He has bound Himself to His own Word.
God cannot break His Word.
God Cannot Lie
The integrity of God is constantly defended in the Bible. His promises are true. He has said exactly what He meant, and He has meant exactly what He has said.
NUMBERS 23:19
19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
We have every reason to place our faith in the promises of God. If He did not expect us to place unwavering faith in His Word, He should not have given to us His precious promises. But His heart rejoices when His children take Him at His word!
In fact, without this faith, this simple confidence in the promises of God, it is impossible to please Him, (Hebrews 11:6). Not one promise of God has ever failed when a man has resolutely made his stand in faith.
The great healing evangelist, F. F. Bosworth once said, Don't doubt your faith, doubt your doubts for they are unreliable. The reasons for faith far outweigh any reason for doubt or unbelief. Not one word of all His good promise has ever failed.
Faith Is Of The Heart
Faith is not a product of the intellect or man's reason, but of the heart. Faith is a product of the spirit of man.
Notice again what Jesus said in Mark 11:23, For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Doubt is located in the heart, not in the head. If doubt exists in the heart, we cannot receive, for doubt nullifies our faith. On the other hand, when faith resides in the heart, then the answer is guaranteed and we will receive. Many times I have had doubt in my head “ my reasoning, my intellect was telling me that something was impossible “ but faith was strong in my heart, and I received the very thing for which I had prayed. The faith in my heart was stronger than the doubt in my mind.
This is an important distinction.
Jesus said, My words are spirit and life, (John 6:63). He was referring to the effect that the Word of God has upon the spirit of man. Just as food feeds the physical man, God's Word is spiritual food for the spiritual man. Paul said that although the outer man is perishing, yet the inner man is being renewed day by day, (2 Corinthians 4:16).
