In the gospel story of the man with the "moonstruck" son, the man says to Jesus, "Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief."
What a lovely and painful verse. It shows the reader that in one soul Faith and Unbelief can be working together. Many people think that if one has faith one cannot have unbelief. But Jesus doesn't think that. The Bible always talks about faith mixed with unbelief. From Abraham to the doubleminded man, there is always great faith mixed with unbelief.
After Jesus spoke the parable of the sower and after he cursed the fig tree, he told his disciples several things:
The first: Speak to the mountain.
The second: Have God's faith
The third: Pray and command in my name. (As his children, his bride, his authorized ambassadors who are occupying til he comes we can use his name and the Lord's name is good in spiritual circles.)
The fourth: It doesn't matter if one has small faith. Everyone has the measure of faith. If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you can still move mountains with a command. What matters is purity of faith, pure unmuddied faith.
The fifth: It doesn't matter if one has small faith. What one must do is use the faith one has. If one has a servant, one tells the servant what to do. If one has a lamp, one doesn't hide it under a barrel.
The sixth: one must speak one's faith and speak the promises. One does not affirm the pathological truth, one affirms the theological truth: Jesus is my healer, The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. By Jesus' wounds I was healed 2000 years ago on the cross.
The seventh: Take heed what one hears. One must protect the faith one has or else one will muddy it. This means avoiding hearing and seeing those things that makes one give up the fight of faith. (This means not discussing one's faith with mocking atheists, kind-hearted well-meaning friends, or ministers from denominations who don't believe in healing or who don't believe that God heals miraculously through communion/the laying on of hands/the spoken word of faith.)
The eighth: When you pray, believe that you have received and you will have it. St Paul calls this casting down vain imaginations and being renewed in one's mind by not conforming to the world's way of thinking. Walk by faith in God's character and not by sight or what you feel.
The ninth: Persevere. Keep praying. Persevereance is powerful. The demonic world fights against getting prayers answered, the flesh fights against answered prayers but persevere.
The tenth: Rejoice and water the word with thanksgiving. This means that one keeps one's mind on what one wants, knowing that God has answered one's prayer in the spiritual realm and that
The eleventh: Ask God for wisdom. He will guide you to the spiritual, physical, emotional, nutritional, demonic, generational, and intellectual reasons why the healing is delayed.
The twelfth: Pray in the spirit.
The thirteenth: Hold fast until you come.
The fourteenth: Stay in the word. If we do not abide in the vine, we lose our connection to the living power of God
The fifteenth: Rest in the finished work of God. Rest because the living word of God is active and is working wonderfully in one's body and in one's life...even if one doesn't see it. It's the work that does the word. The seed grows by itself. All we can do is water it with thanksgiving.
The sixteenth: fast and pray if necessary
The seventeenth: Use communion and the body and blood of Christ to get your healing. Where the mountain is big and faith is small, God provides that the healing will come in a progressive manner.
Lord, you have taught us all things that pertain to health and life. I love you very much.-C
Lord I believe; Help my unbelief.
This will be a blog for Christians, for people who are part of a minority, for writers. I'm a poet, essayist, devotionalist, reviewer and writer of speculative fiction.Let God be true...and every man a liar.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
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2 comments:
Its a wonderful thing to know the Lord knows our hearts and feels our doubting spirits...Lord help the unbelief in my belief! Good blog:)
Isn't our Lord lovely that he should have put this episode in the Bible!
I love this verse so much. Love the entire story since it is so close to my life. -C
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