Believers are not Beggars

Believers are not beggars. Believers do not beg God for things. Believers simply believe that what God says will come to pass. The problem is, even as a preacher, I spend most of my time trying to get believers to believe.

Mark 11:22-24 says, “So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”

That verse seems so simply and yet we make it so hard. We pray all kinds of things and yet do not believe. We hope it happens, hope it comes to pass, and yet we don’t really believe it. We keep praying the same prayer day in and day out, thinking our repetition will stir God. We have not seen the results, so we just keep on praying, hoping God is listening. We spend our efforts begging God, and yet that is not what He is looking for – He wants us to believe. He wants us to take Him at His Word, trusting that He will do what He says.

Now, let’s put this in the right perspective. If I really believe that ‘by the stripes of Jesus, I am healed (Isaiah 53:5),’ what would I be doing? If you really believe something, you act on it. Now, if I was completely paralyzed and could not move, how do I act on it? I tell you, I would move whatever I could, even if I could only bat my eyelashes. Do you understand? I would do something that showed I am in agreement with God. I would begin the process.

Healing is a process. We absolutely crash-land our own belief system by being impatient and pre-determining how God has to do something. Yet, recovery or the healing process is progressive. So how do I respond? I would say, “I can’t help what it looks like. I can’t help what I feel like. All I know is that I believe I receive my healing.”  That is how you keep your faith alive – with your mouth. If you are waiting for the pain to leave before you believe you are healed, you are in trouble. God does not operate that way. He is a God of the spirit-realm. You have to take His Word by faith, not because you felt something, but because He is trustworthy. What He has said, He will perform in your life (Jeremiah 1:12).

Don’t shut the door on your healing. Don’t lose your healing in the process. In other words, just believe. No matter what you feel, no matter what takes place, no matter what – thank God that His healing power is at work in you. Trusting God does not disappoint!