The Faith "ON" Switch
Your faith can be switched ‘ON’, or it can be turned ‘OFF’.
Some years ago a well-respected minister recounted to us the story of an incredible healing he had witnessed. He had been praying for a young boy with a club foot. The boy’s foot was turned out to the extent that he couldn't walk on it. As the minister prayed, he believed the healing power of God had gone into the boy, and he felt to tell the boy’s mother to “Keep the switch of faith turned on”.
There was no visible sign of improvement in the boy’s foot, but the minister explained to the mother that they had prayed and had agreed together, so whenever she thought of her son’s foot, she was to thank God that His healing power is at work and that she has received what she prayed for.
Some months later this minister was again at the same church, and there was the little boy, with a healed foot. The mother said how nothing appeared to happen for some time, but she kept believing she had received healing for his foot and thanked God that healing power was at work.
Keeping our faith switched on is taught in Mark 11:22-24. It’s precisely how God uses faith.
“And Jesus answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you; whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.
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The expression, "have faith in God", can be translated "have the God kind of faith", or "have faith in the same way that God has it". Jesus described how the God kind of faith works. First Jesus explained that when we speak to our mountains, we are to believe that what we say is going to happen. This doesn’t mean we say ‘it’s going to happen’; if we say ‘it’s going to happen’ it’s putting the desired result off into the future tense. Jesus said if we speak to the mountain in the present tense: ‘be removed, be cast into the sea’. We speak like it’s happening NOW. According to Jesus, if we speak in the present, the force to move the mountain is at work now, and the mountain WILL move.
We can see this at work in the example of Jesus speaking to the fig tree. Jesus had spoken to the fig tree the day before (Mark 11:12). It took a whole day for the fig tree to wither. If you think about it, that’s about the length of time it would take for a tree to wither once its source of life had been cut off. You can be sure Peter would have looked at the fig tree on their way out of Jerusalem that evening. But he didn't notice or comment that the tree had withered. It wasn’t until the next day that Jesus’ command could be seen to take effect.
That’s faith at work in the now. Believing what had been spoken in the present tense, so that the effect of that faith can transpire. Likewise, in Jesus’ instructing on praying in faith, He says, “whatever you pray and ask (or require), believe that you HAVE RECEIVED them.”
For our faith to work, we have to keep the ‘ON’ switch turned ‘ON”. We are to believe what we have said is happening now will come to pass. We are to believe we have already received it.
Written by Grant Peterson
