Becoming a Man of Unwavering Faith (4 page)

A
s demonstrated on Mount Carmel by the prophet Elijah, the first quality of a man of unwavering faith is that he will see and hear what the world cannot see and hear.

After the 450 prophets of Baal had been killed, Elijah found the wicked King Ahab and announced to him, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain” (1 Kings 18:41
NIV
). At that moment there wasn’t any sign of rain in the sky, but
Elijah knew God would keep His Word
.

Remember, God had said, “If you break My law and worship idols, I’ll keep the rain from you.” Elijah had taken that word and prayed, and God had shut up the heavens. Then Elijah had seen the people repent from their idolatry, and based upon God’s promise, Elijah knew he had the right to call upon God for the rain to return.

Elijah’s spirit began to reach out. He knew what God was going to do. He said, “This is how faith works. I don’t see the rain. I don’t smell it or hear it. But I tell you, in my spirit, I hear the sound of abundance of rain.”

How faith works reminds me of a dog whistle. If you blow a dog whistle, you won’t hear a sound. But if there’s a dog nearby, his ears will perk up. He can hear that whistle, because he hears on a different sound frequency than we do.

In the same manner, people attuned to the Holy Spirit can hear on a different frequency than the world. We can hear things the world does not hear. We can hear the sound of angels’ wings, the sound of the footsteps of Jesus, and the coming blessings of God.

Men and women of faith hear the shout of victory before it ever gets there. They can hear the sound of that wayward son or daughter coming home. By faith, they can hear them knocking on the door. They can hear the testimony of that loved one for whom they’ve been praying for years. They hear it with the ears of faith.

How did Elijah hear the rain that no one else could see or hear?
Because he knew the Word of God
.

Several years ago a friend of mine was flying in a jet at
35,000 feet on his way to a preaching appointment. At the time, he was such an accomplished pianist that he had been offered opportunities in the entertainment world that would have assured him a great future. He also had a beautiful solo voice. God had called him to preach, and he had chosen to follow the vocation that was the perfect will of God for his life.

Several years before this flight, he had been afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, which had grown progressively worse in his entire body. His hands became knotted and gnarled and paralyzed to free movement, ending his days of artistry at the piano. All the joints of his body were affected by this disease and filled with pain. His ankles were swollen to the size of grapefruits, and his knees were enlarged.

My friend was unable to function in a normal way. He told me he bought aspirin by the full box rather than the bottle. He took it constantly to try to relieve the excruciating pain that was throughout his body. Many mornings he had to be rolled out of bed with the help of others and placed in a tub of hot water to loosen up the joints and partially relieve the pain. He was not able to walk in a normal fashion, but simply made his way along the best he could with his knees and ankles and the rest of his joints aching and deformed by this crippling disease.

This was his condition as he sat on the airplane
going to preach the Gospel. The doctors had given him the verdict that there was nothing that medical science could do for him as far as there being any permanent healing. He could only get relief from the pain by taking medication. They told him that he would just simply have to live with it and gradually grow worse.

Gone was his ability to thrill and bless people with piano music. Gone was his ability to live a normal life. But he sat on that airplane, determined to preach the Gospel to the best of his ability.

While reading his Bible on the airplane, he began to meditate on the Scriptures. He read that Jesus bore our sicknesses and carried our pains and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). He read in Matthew 8:17 that Jesus healed all the sick: “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.’ ” He read in 1 Peter 2:24, “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”

Suddenly, a light turned on deep inside of him. He heard in his inner man the words, “By His stripes
you were healed
.” There came a true understanding on the inside of him. Suddenly, he knew that he was healed! Suddenly, he had absolute assurance that he was free
from that disease. He began to rejoice, because he was certain he was healed.

As he sat in his seat with this revelation knowledge that he was healed, he didn’t look any different; his body didn’t feel any different; his body didn’t function any different. No one seated around him could see the miracle. But he knew that a miracle had taken place on the inside.

When he went to deplane, he could barely make it out of his seat, then he hobbled down the aisle. The pastor from the church met him at the airport gate, took his little case, and asked, “How are you?” And my hobbling friend, still stooped over and unable to look up in a normal fashion, turned his head slightly (as far as he could) to look upward toward the pastor and said, “Oh, I’m glad to announce to you that I’m healed by the stripes of Jesus.”

I’m sure the pastor wondered if not only his body had been affected by the disease, but maybe his mind also!

When the time came for my friend to minister at the pastor’s church, he hobbled to the platform and stood behind the pulpit. With the arthritis seemingly still dominating his body, he looked up at the congregation and said, “Before I preach the message to you, I would like to rejoice before all of you and tell you that I am so glad that by the stripes of Jesus I have been healed. Arthritis cannot live in my body. I want you to rejoice with me that I am healed and that I can play the piano and walk normally again.”

Every person in that congregation reacted in a different way. I am sure many of them wondered about the credibility of the man standing stooped in the pulpit.

But from that moment on, my friend began to get better and better. In a matter of weeks, all the arthritis was gone from his body and every joint was normal. That was well over twenty years previous to this writing. I have been in his meetings personally and wept as he played the piano and gave praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly he is living a healthy life to this day!

So what happened on the airplane to my friend? What happened to Elijah on Mount Carmel? Is there a
law that supersedes the natural laws that we know? Is there something that we don’t know as far as our natural minds are concerned?

The Bible talks about the law of faith, stating that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). You see, sitting on that airplane, my friend received knowledge from God in his spirit-man that the world is unable to receive with the natural, carnal mind.

The Bible says that faith is of the heart. “For with the heart one believes…” (Romans 10:10). It is with your heart that you believe. The
heart
means “the spirit-man.” There is a spirit-man on the inside of your physical body. The apostle Paul is telling us that faith is a spiritual force that comes forth from the spirit-man. It is the spirit-man who is able to respond to the Word of God and to exercise faith.

You see, as my friend sat on the airplane, filled with a crippling disease that had held him captive, he meditated on the great promises of the Word of God concerning the eternal redemption that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. He meditated on it until suddenly it was not only in his carnal mind, but his spirit-man began to pick up these truths. His inner man began to feed upon the truths of God’s Spirit.

It was Spirit-to-spirit communication. When his spirit began to pick up the eternal fact that “by His stripes you were healed,” faith leaped into being, because faith is of the heart. He suddenly knew, not with his mind, but with his spirit-man, that he was healed. In this
knowing
, he was unwavering in his confidence, even though there was no physical evidence of a change.

You see, the body has five senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch—with which we contact the physical world. But God has given us a sixth sense—faith—to function in the spirit realm in our spirit-man, made alive with the life of Almighty God. Yes! The spirit-man made alive by the grace and resurrection life of Jesus Christ does have a sense, which we call faith. Faith is totally independent of the five senses we use to function in the physical and material world.

This sense of faith is used to touch the unseen, invisible world. The natural senses cannot touch that spiritual dimension. They have no contact with it. But faith, created by the Word of God, enables you to reach out into the dimension of the invisible and activate the creative power of God.

This is what happened to my friend on the airplane: He left the natural and went into the supernatural. He left the physical and went into the spiritual. He got out of his
physical nature and got into his spiritual nature. Feeding on the Word of God, his spirit-man received revelation knowledge and an unshakable confidence that he was truly healed. Though there was no evidence anywhere in his physical senses to corroborate the fact that he was healed, this sixth sense of faith dominated and conquered the others! His body responded, and sickness and disease left him.

That is what it means to become a man of unwavering faith. Are you there? Do you realize there is hope? It is possible for you to rise out of your prison house, whatever that might entail for you!

Jesus said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). Jesus said this to enlarge our faith to believe God for what we think or perceive to be impossible.

As you look at your situation today, is it impossible with men? Is it impossible for you to be healed or for your family to be put back together or for that situation to be resolved or that addiction to end? If you hear the word
impossible
ringing in your ears, then listen to the sweet voice of the Son of God who cannot lie: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

By faith you can shake off the shackles that hold you
in the natural and touch God who is in the realm of the supernatural.
Study the truths presented in this book until you too can rise above the word
impossible
. Begin to function in the realm of unwavering faith.

E
LIJAH HEARD THE RAIN THAT

NO ONE ELSE COULD HEAR

because he knew the Word of God
.

T
he Bible says that after the prophet Elijah announced to King Ahab that rain was coming and the king went off to eat and drink, “Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees” (1 Kings 18:42
NIV
).

So if
by faith
Elijah heard the sound of abundance of rain (v. 41), why didn’t he just put his mantle over his head, walk home, and call it a good day? Couldn’t he have said, “I heard the rain; it’s coming. There’s no need for me to stay around here”? No, Elijah knew it was time to go before God in earnest prayer, or prevailing prayer, to be sure that what he had heard by faith would come to pass.

Hearing the answer you need by faith doesn’t mean you don’t have to pray and to claim your victory. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a battle to go through. We must “fight the good fight of faith” until we “lay hold on eternal life,
to which [we] were also called” (1 Timothy 6:12).