If you are believing for something right now and you’re not receiving it, then I can say with certainty that faith probably isn’t your problem. Unbelief is. Unbelief is what kept me from receiving my healing for many, many years and I didn’t even know it. I thought my faith wasn’t strong enough. I thought I needed more faith. All that time, I was focused on the wrong thing. I was focused on my faith – or what I thought was a lack thereof – when I should have had my eyes set on eliminating unbelief.
Unbelief can be caused by many things – lack of teaching, wrong teaching, or your physical senses, just to name a few – and faith and unbelief can walk side by side. We see that fact demonstrated in Mark 9:23-24 (NKJV): “Jesus said to him, ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’” This was belief and unbelief rolled up into one package.
Scripture also tells us that unbelief can make your faith of no effect. This means that even if your faith is active, doubt will keep it from accomplishing what it was designed to accomplish. James 1:6-7 (NKJV) says, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.” If you have doubt (unbelief), you won’t get what you are believing for. (Don’t shoot the messenger!)
It is not an issue of faith. It is an issue of unbelief. Jesus couldn’t perform any mighty miracles because of unbelief in the hearts of the people of his hometown (Mark 6:5-6). The disciples couldn’t cast the demon out of the possessed boy because of their unbelief (Matthew 17:20). As Peter walked on water using pure faith, he just as quickly began to sink because of his unbelief (Matthew 14:29-31). Jesus never once said to people that they couldn’t receive or they couldn’t do something because they needed more faith. His answer was always the same: “Why did you doubt?”
Jesus makes it clear that faith is not the issue in Luke 17:5-6. The disciples said to Jesus, “Increase our faith.” And Jesus said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” They asked for more faith, and Jesus said they didn’t need more faith, they just needed to use what they had!
Since faith and unbelief can exist simultaneously, I like to look at faith and unbelief like the scales of justice, with faith on one side and unbelief on the other. Focusing on God’s Word creates more weight on the faith side. Focusing on your body and circumstances creates more weight on the unbelief side.
So, it doesn’t matter how much faith you have if you have the same amount of unbelief on the other side. They will counteract each other, and you won’t see any results one way or the other. You can have gargantuan faith, but that is easily countered by gargantuan unbelief. By the same token, if you have a tiny mustard seed of faith on the scale and zero unbelief, that faith is going to tip the scales and you will see what you’re believing for come to pass. Until I recognized that unbelief was the true culprit in my inability to receive, it counterbalanced my faith and made it ineffective in the area of healing.
So let’s talk about getting that unbelief out of your life so your faith can work effectively, because Jesus said that if you will have faith and not doubt, you can tell a mountain to move, and it will move (Matthew 21:21)! We’re going to look to Abraham as our example.
When Abraham was 74 years old, God promised him that he would be the father of many nations (through a son he would have), and that promise is what he believed in (Romans 4:18). He took no thought of any fact that presented itself in opposition to the Word he had received from God. God said it, and that settled it for him. He would have a child and it didn’t matter how long it took.
This is the starting point for eliminating unbelief in your life: Find God’s promise to you that speaks to the situation you’re in and focus in that. Do you know what God says about your situation? It’s not good enough to just have a vague recollection of possibly hearing a verse that said something about something that may or may not apply to what you’re going through. If you don’t know what He says, then get in the Word and find out!
Once you have that promise, then Romans 4:19-20 holds the key to defeating unbelief: “And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.”
I don’t know if you caught this or not, but Abraham was 100 years old when he saw the fulfillment of God’s promise to him. Do you remember that he was 75 when he received the promise? This means he was still strong in faith after 25 years of not seeing the promise of God manifest itself in his and Sarah’s lives. That, quite frankly, is impressive. In our microwave society, if we don’t see something within a week, we’re pitching a fit. If we don’t see results in a month, we’re giving up! So, how in the world did he not doubt after 25 years of believing and not receiving?
The key to his success in getting rid of that stinking unbelief is this phrase: “he did not consider his own body, already dead.” Abraham first focused on God’s promise, and then he “did not consider” his present circumstances. He didn’t look at their ages, or the fact that neither his nor Sarah’s bodies were physically capable of producing children. He didn’t listen to the naysaying chatter (because there are always naysayers) telling him he was nuts to believe such an outlandish promise. He didn’t listen to it. He turned his eyes from his body, his circumstances, and placed them on the promise.
A.W. Tozer gives a great description of unbelief: “Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust not in the living God but in dying men.” In a nutshell, Abraham put his faith in God, not in his aging body.
Take a hard look today at what you’re considering. If you’re believing for healing, do you spend a lot of time “considering” your body and how it feels? Do you get up in the morning and do a head-to-toe assessment of your body and then base the plans of your day on that assessment? If you’re believing for finances, do you “consider” your lack of funds by checking your bank account every hour, by worrying, by letting anxiety rule you?
The more attention you give to your circumstances means the less attention you’re giving to God’s promise to you. Every time you focus on your situation, you are creating unbelief and adding more weight to the scale in its favor. Now, I’m not saying you have to deny the facts (the symptoms, the lack, etc.), but what I am saying is that when thoughts come, when pain comes, when anything comes that is contrary to that promise you’re standing on, then you have to choose to say, “Okay, pain. I feel you, but the Word says in Isaiah 53:4 says that Jesus carried this pain for me so that I wouldn’t have to.” Or “Okay, oppression, I recognize you, but Psalm 119:130 says that the entrance of His words brings light, and you cannot exist in the presence of that light!”
Countering physical symptoms or circumstances with the Word (not with willpower – which eventually exhausts itself) will cause you to develop the same confidence Abraham had in God’s promise to him. In order for this to be effective in eliminating doubt, you have to be consistent. You have to be persistent! If you spend a few minutes with His Word in the forefront of your mind every day, and the rest of the time you spend focused on your problem, then your unbelief will outweigh the power of your faith every time.
Put simply, you eliminate unbelief by not looking to your body or your circumstances for confirmation of the truthfulness of the promise, and by speaking the Word when you experience anything contrary to the promise. If you want to get rid of unbelief, you can’t look to the what-if’s or the when’s. You have to look to the absolute…God’s promise.