My assignment now is to portray for you the relationship between faith and healing. Who is equal to such a task? To begin with we must ask the question: Why faith? What is so special about this topic that it dominates the spiritual lives of so many Christians? It is faith that permeates the pages of the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. It is the essential INGREDIENT in any exchange between God and man.

We cannot please God without it. By our faith we gain access into the grace in which we stand. Deliverance from sin and sickness and all the power of the enemy is by faith.

Faith is equivalent to obedience and righteousness.

Faith alone receives from the Father.

Faith is the victory that overcomes the world!

What is faith?

Faith is the heart-cry of the child of God. It penetrates the heavens, parting the veil, to obtain all the will of the Father. It is a light the darkness cannot extinguish, an anchor the storm has no power to uproot.

Faith sees the invisible, believes the unthinkable, and receives the impossible. Faith never wonders. It always knows. Faith is fully persuaded.

Faith trusts in the character of our God and in the veracity of His Word. Faith defines truth by eternal standards. It is a gift from the Father to the heart of the believer.

It should be ever increasing,

fed on the Holy Scriptures and exercised in the trials of life.

God’s word is the raw material of faith mined from the pages of the testaments.

Faith is the life of the righteous, the substance of intangible hope, the assurance of possession in the absence of perception.

It precedes seeing, hearing, touching. Believing is seeing!

If you can see it, hear it, touch it, it isn’t faith it is knowing.

Faith gives glory to God in advance of evidence others would accept. It sings praises at midnight, ignoring the stocks and worships in the day of adversity. It looks beyond the storm swept sea to meet the master’s eyes and walks upon the living rock of His word.

It breathes His life from the heart through the mouth and frames new worlds of beauty conceived in heaven. It calls things that be not as though they were and they become. It calls defeat victory, weakness strength , majestic mountains, level plains.

David believed and spoke and the giant perished. Joshua believed and spoke and the walls crumbled. Able believed and now by faith, though dead, he still speaks. If you have ears to hear you can yet hear his words echoing through the ages. Faith has the ring of immortality to it. It speaks of higher thoughts and higher ways. Abraham’s faith is still receiving the promise.

Faith’s words are consistent, stable, unwavering. Only pure, fresh water flows from its spring. The sea is as glass reflecting the timeless beauty of the heavenlies. No wave of doubt spoils the scene.

Faith speaks the language of truth, the vocabulary of blessing, the dialect of peace. No lie is found on its holy lips.

Faith receives now! This is the day that the Lord hath made. Today is the day of salvation. God is working here and now. Jesus has completed the work. It is finished. "One day" never arrives. "God will" never receives. Faith believes that it has received from God and then all heaven marshals to provide. Faith chooses a moment calling it today when it inherits its salvation. Then it is done. It is an established fact in the Spirit, an immutable reality. Faith gives God glory, honor and praises for what He has done.

Faith is specific. It knows what it wants. It means what it says. It combs God’s word for the one promise that is the key to the door it has selected. Then with the lips it turns the key, with the tongue of thanksgiving it slides the bolt and with actions in harmony with its words it opens the door. What faith has opened, no man can shut.

Living faith demands action. Noah built the ark. Abraham offered Isaac. David ran to meet the giant. Their faith and their actions were working together. Their actions quickened their faith.

Time is an enemy of faith slowly weakening its grip on victory. Natural faith cowers before it hearing in the distance the tolling of the bell. Patience transcends time. It lifts faith into the divine sphere of eternity where time loses its meaning and death loses its sting.

Pure faith is concentrated spiritual power. It is diluted by the solvent of unbelief.

Faith’s power is short-circuited to ground by unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness draws faith down out of the heavenlies to a lower earthly plain where it becomes impotent, ineffective, devoid of power. Jacob’s ladder collapses and there is no route for heaven’s blessings to descend to the earth. Keep not a list of your brother's failings. If you examine it closely you will find your own name written there. Pray not for justice but for mercy. Do you really seek a God of justice? Who could escape? Remember He is the great I AM. He says, "I AM anything you need me to be. I become whatever you say I AM." I say, "His mercy endures forever. His tender mercies are new every morning."

But for grace, where would we be?

Faith is the gatekeeper of the heart. Whatever we believe, truth or lie, passes the gate to become part of our inner being. Whatever we refuse to believe is barred entrance.

Whatever enters the heart will overflow through the mouth and mould reality.

Use your faith or lose your faith! Feed it with the Word, water it with the Spirit. Exercise it, embrace it, protect it for your faith is your victory!