Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the NET, netbible.org, all rights reserved)

I brought him to your disciples, but they were not able to heal him.”
Matthew 17:16 (emphasis added)

How much of what we believe about healing today comes from people and not from the Word? Is it that healing has passed away or is it that we changed how we viewed it? Yahweh is more than eternal (Isaiah 9:6). He doesn’t change (Hebrews 13:8). The Law didn’t pass away, Jesus FULFILLED it (Matthew 5:17-20). Jesus IS the sacrifice for us, so we don’t need to GIVE sacrifices of animals or grain or whatnot because we can simply ACCEPT Him as our sacrifice. We STILL REPENT, but HE is the propitiation of the sacrifice. Yahweh started the process of healing BEFORE He created the universe that we see around us (1 Peter 1:20). Healing always was, is, and will be. It isn’t Him not healing. It is US looking at it wrong.

There are seventeen times that Jesus healed ALL who came to Him in the Gospels. All of the sick. All. Physical healing, releasing demonic possession. ALL. Jesus NEVER turned away someone with a need. Jesus NEVER rejected ANYONE who sought Him – Jew OR Gentile. Jesus NEVER disobeyed His Father and stepped in where there was a need whenever the Father told Him too – even interrupting funerals. At the same time, Jesus didn’t heal all the sick EVERYWHERE He went. Why not?

It IS the Father’s will to heal EVERYONE. Not everyone BELIEVES, TRUSTS, or has FAITH to be healed. It only takes a LITTLE faith (Matthew 17:20-21). We need to reject unbelief (Mark 5:36). Belief and faith are characterised by TRUSTING in the Lord (Psalm 37:5; Mark 11:24). We need to trust the Lord so that we can believe and then apply our faith to that belief – a concept that can be summed up by faith because faith relies on the other two. If we have faith and avoid unbelief, we will HAVE what the Lord SAYS we can have – as long as we line up with the Word. We cannot walk in sin and trust in the Lord. We cannot be outside the BLESSING and have faith to be BLESSED. We submit to the Word, stand on the Word, trust in the Lord, and apply our faith. Simple.

So why – in the context of our verse – didn’t the disciples successfully cast out the spirit tormenting the boy? In the context of what Jesus said, unbelief. Their unbelief stopped them. There was something about the situation that niggled at their unbelief. Why couldn’t they stand against that? Why couldn’t they push that down? The father of the boy was in the same boat, but he relied on Jesus’ belief to get through. What about the disciples? Jesus answered in verse 20: “He told them, “It was because of your little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.”” In some manuscripts (and the translations that follow them) there is another verse (21): “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.“

A life of prayer and fasting builds up our trust in Adonai and the rest comes from that. You MUST seek Him. You MUST have a relationship with Him. YOU are not the one doing the work. HE is the one doing the work. “We must perform the deeds of the one who sent me as long as it is daytime. Night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4). “Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you” (Romans 8:11). When we pray in the Name of JESUS, it is the FATHER through HOLY SPIRIT who does the work. We seek the Lord because HE gets to say how and when He wants to do the work.

Prayer builds our relationship with Yahweh, but it does nothing to help our FAITH. If we don’t want wimpy little faith that isn’t strong enough to lift a wet noodle, we MUST build it. We must strengthen it. We must exercise it. We must DEEPEN it. How? “Consequently faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). We hear the Word and Adonai uses it to alter us. To work on us so that we learn to call things as HE calls them. To align with His ways and paths and works. To keep us in the middle of His path, turning neither to the right or left (Proverbs 4:25-27).

How are you going to know if Yahweh wants to heal you or the person you are praying for? The Word. It is the way in which the Lord God speaks to us. If you don’t know what HE has said, HOW can you stand on it, trust it, believe it, or anything? The answer is that you cannot. If you don’t know what He says you don’t know WHAT to believe. You will have to rely on what we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. With healing, that is a BAD idea. A REALLY BAD idea. Because the unseen power of Shaddai is what makes the seen comply to the Word – “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). What IS the unseen? EVERYTHING of the Kingdom. THAT is what the Word is from one point of view. Yahweh’s journal of what HE has and wants to put in YOUR hands. Dear Diary, this is what I have made. This is what I am giving them. This is what I truly hope and wish they would walk in. Etcetera etcetera. It is Yahweh’s love letter to His creation. It is also our compliance manual that shows us what His standards are.

None of that can be seen. None of that is visible to us. It must be perceived with the spirit. It is the SPIRITUAL realm. It CAN manifest, but only when we have our eyes on JESUS – because it is JESUS who does it all, has done it all, and always will do it all (Colossians 1:17). So what is the answer? KILL YOUR UNBELIEF so that you can FOCUS on what you DO believe. If we spend all our time listening to what CANNOT be done or what the WORLD thinks will happen (regardless of reason, logic, or evidence) then we will be feeding our unbelief in the same way spending time in the Word builds our faith.

“Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.” Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God” (Romans 4:18-20). Abraham had evidence that he was old. Abraham had evidence that Sarah was old AND barren. Abraham had evidence that this thing (having a natural child) could NOT happen. He could see, hear, and touch MANY examples of how this was impossible. He IGNORED it. He did NOT focus on ANY of the negative. He fed the positive. He meditated on what YAHWEH had said. Because he focused on THAT, he was able to trust. He had faith UNDILUTED by unbelief.

Work on your unbelief. Don’t spend time finding reasons it won’t work. Don’t spend time reading up on the negative. Acknowledge it, then focus on the positive sayings of the Lord. Do NOT think happy thoughts. Think YAHWEH thoughts. Think WORD thoughts. This isn’t the power of positive thinking. This isn’t looking on the bright side. This is focusing on what the LORD says what the WORD says and the PROMISES you can trust and rely on. Do not let unbelief grow. Do not let unbelief go unchallenged. What you THINK doesn’t matter. What you SEE doesn’t matter. What you can PROVE doesn’t matter. Only what YAHWEH says matters.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Exodus 17:6

“I will be standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you will strike the rock, and water will come out of it so that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in plain view of the elders of Israel.” Messiah will be the ROCK of Israel. Jesus said that He was THE river of LIFE (John 7:37-38). But what about being a rock? Peter called Jesus the Son of the Living God. Jesus responded by telling him that on THAT revelation the Church would be built (Matthew 16:16-18). Paul expounded on it in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they were all drinking from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” Jesus IS the Rock of Israel. Jesus IS Messiah.

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b