continued by cleaning its wing mirror
and opening the front driver’s door
as he explained that he was believing
God for a car. He was quite clear on
what he wanted and proceeded in
telling us what colour and make it was
going to be.
On reading this you may have had
a chuckle yourself dismissing our
friends actions as the bantering of
one with an overactive imagination.
He was indeed sincere and meant no
harm by it, the problem however, was
the source that influenced his actions.
He was demonstrating a new belief
system that was spreading throughout
the Charismatic movement and
heralded by one of its leaders. He
was the godfather of what is today
called the ‘faith movement’. He said
that for faith to work we must have a
clear picture in our minds of what we
wanted. This should include details
such as, for example, the colour and
make of what we wanted. The more
refined and precise the image in our
mind’s eye the greater the chances of
us receiving it when we pray.
Our friend did not get the car he
imagined. You see, God’s word
says “...faith comes by hearing
the WORD OF GOD…” Romans
10:17 not by imagining. The above
example is just one of the many ways
man have blurred the lines between
truth and lie, enticing God’s people
with heresies and shipwrecking the
faith of many. They crowd out God’s
truth with worldly concepts. It’s that
same worldly delusion that says, ‘If
you can dream it you will achieve it,’
dressed up as faith and fed to God’s
people. This secular humanistic brand
of faith does not work and many
who practiced it in detail ended up
devastated when it failed them.
True Spirituality does not deny
reality
I was not immune to this ‘Charismanic’
bug. I remembered the day a friend
and I needed to get somewhere
but had no way of getting there so
I prayed sincerely and earnestly that
God would translate us. When my
prayers yielded no results I insisted
that what we needed to do was
to block the reality of our present
location and begin to imagine
ourselves in the new location. As we
walked we would not even as much as
acknowledge the greetings of friends
as we went by. Suffice it to say that it
did not work and we did not make it
to our desired destination.
I recall the story of the woman who
told others that God said that she
was going to marry a specific man.
The problem however, was that this
man was already married. It was later
revealed that she had borrowed a
bank loan for which she did not have
the means of repayment. She said she
was doing it by faith as she believed
the Lord wanted her to have the
money. She later got into big trouble
when she couldn’t repay. Such actions
are borne out of folly, not faith and
the number of people with similar
stories would shock you.
Romans 4:19 was the Scripture used to
push the idea that faith denies reality.
Speaking of Abraham’s faith the King
James version says, “And being not
weak in faith, he considered not his
own body now dead…” While The
Living Bible says, “And because his
faith was strong, he didn’t worry
about the fact that he was too old
to be a father at the age of one
hundred…” (TLB) Those with diabolic
intentions and great influence among
God’s people twisted its meaning to
say Abraham blocked the reality of
his present state. That’s not true. It’s
simply a matter of Old English versus
Modern English where a double
negative is used in the King James
for emphasis on his strong faith and
the double negative is translated as
a positive in Modern English into
‘strong faith’, where we rarely use
double negatives in one sentence.
Other modern translations bring out
its meaning even more clearly, for
example. Romans 4:19 “He did not
weaken in faith when he considered
the [utter] impotence of his own
body, which was as good as dead
because he was about a hundred
years old, or [when he considered]
the barrenness of Sarah’s [deadened]
womb.” Amplified Bible, Classic
Edition (AMPC)
You will never find anywhere in
Scriptures any of God’s healers,
Jesus included, telling people to
lie to themselves by convincing
themselves of something that’s
not true. The healings in Scriptures
were clear for all to see and did not
insist that people leave ‘confessing’
something that wasn’t manifestly
true. Faith is not human psychology
where we practice mind over matter
but is instead a divine infusion that
captivat es the soul. It is an assurance
from God Himself that something is
going to happen. When we receive
that spiritual deposit it goes from
God’s Spirit to our spirit it; is not
a matter of ‘mind over matter’ as
spiritual truth is imparted and it is
tangible, is evidence and produces in
the physical what it has promised. p
By Homer Slack
author, preacher, Bible
teacher, IT tutor, program-
mer & graphic designer
January - March 2018
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