Word of Faith: Denying Reality

When it comes to certain teachings, or doctrines as they are usually called, have you ever wondered where some of them originate from?

Have you ever wondered why we do certain things? Say certain things?

One teaching for me that comes to mind is the “word of faith” teaching which “enables” people to declare and decree or to deny the reality of a situation.

This can be a dangerous and harmful doctrine and practice for a few reasons, both within and without The Church.

Let’s talk about within The Church first, and then we’ll see this is being lived outside The Church.

First: Declaring and decreeing.

This is a practice that has somehow crept into The Church which says we can “speak things into existence” and they shall be done.

But where does this practice and teaching come from?

This comes from a misapplication of something The Apostle Paul wrote to The Christians in ancient Rome in helping them to know where we stand before God and God’s ability in light of our inability, specifically in talking about Abraham, the human origin of the Nation of Israel.

Romans 4:16–18 CSB

16 This is why the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace, to guarantee it to all the descendants—not only to the one who is of the law but also to the one who is of Abraham’s faith. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations— in the presence of the God in whom he believed, the one who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist. 18 He believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father of many nations according to what had been spoken: So will your descendants be.

Someone somewhere decided that we can now do what God can do.

But this isn’t what Jesus taught us was available to us, “speaking things into existence”.

Instead, Jesus taught us this:

John 15:7–8 CSB

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

Again He says:

John 14:13–14 CSB

13 Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

So us getting things done as Christians, as disciples of Jesus Christ is not us decreeing and declaring, but one of faithfulness, staying in alignment with God’s desire and purpose (His will) and working with Him to bring them to completion.

Point #2: Claiming or not claiming

To claim or not to claim can either bring false hope and hurt someone’s faith in God if it doesn’t come to pass, or cause them to be disillusioned when their circumstances don’t change because they “didn’t claim” something.

When Jesus was fasting for 40 days, we don’t see Him “not claiming” His encounter with satan, being opposed and trying to make Jesus doubt who He was as The Messiah.

Jesus accepted the reality of the situation and faced it head on, depending on God’s faithfulness to His Word and The strength of God’s Spirit within Him to overcome such a demonic encounter.

Matthew 4:1–4 CSB

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 Then the tempter approached him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Jesus did not say “I don’t claim that!”

Jesus accepted the reality of the situation and did what He needed to get through it.

When His coming trial and eventual crucifixion was approaching, He didn’t say “I don’t claim this crucifixion!”

He accepted it as the reality that He was walking into, but prayed for strength to endure it in order to accomplish the plan and desire of The Spirit of God within Him, in order to bring about the resurrection and the deliverance/salvation of those who would come to entrust their lives to YHWH through Jesus.

Matthew 26:36–39 CSB

36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he told the disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 He said to them, “I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

As the betrayal was being carried out, Jesus even stated this, after praying for His will to be submitted to The will of The Spirit.

Matthew 26:51–54 CSB

51 At that moment one of those with Jesus reached out his hand and drew his sword. He struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus told him, “Put your sword back in its place because all who take up the sword will perish by the sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and he will provide me here and now with more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How, then, would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?”

If God is allowing it, we have to ask ourselves why?

If it’s a health issue, have we done all we can to take care of our bodily health?

Are there genetic factors at play in our health?

Are there things we can do to improve our health or whatever situation we’re in?

Even after was resurrected from the dead and raised into Heaven, when His disciples start going through problems, we don’t see them “not claiming” it.

They accepted it as reality, maybe not what they wanted, but it was the reality of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, The One who defeated satan’s strangle hold on mankind through the disease of sin within our bodies.

Acts 4:1–3 CSB

1 While they were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple police, and the Sadducees confronted them, 2 because they were annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 So they seized them and took them into custody until the next day since it was already evening.

Acts 4:5–12 CSB

5 The next day, their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem 6 with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the members of the high-priestly family. 7 After they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them: “By what power or in what name have you done this?” 8 Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders: 9 If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man, by what means he was healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing here before you healthy. 11 This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”

Acts 4:23–31 CSB

23 After they were released, they went to their own people and reported everything the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together to God and said, “Master, you are the one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David your servant: Why do the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot futile things? 26 The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers assemble together against the Lord and against his Messiah. 27 “For, in fact, in this city both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, 28 to do whatever your hand and your will had predestined to take place. 29 And now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand for healing, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.

The disciples and Apostle’s didn’t reject the reality of their situation by not “claiming it”, they went through it with prayerful dependence upon God and let Him decide how to bring them through it, whether they suffered as He did in Jesus Christ, or He delivered them from the problem.

The problem with this is that when we deny reality, we are saying that what is happening isn’t going to happen, but what about when God does let it happen?

Do we hurt the faith of those who are young in the faith by teaching and continuing a false practice and teaching?

The principle of denial of reality is the same principle that many within the lgbtq+ community are dealing with.

When working with a mental health patient, gender dysphoria being a diagnosable condition, we are help them reorient to the reality of the situation. This is called being benevolent in the mental health field.

Doing the opposite is said that we are being malevolent, or showing intense or vicious ill will, spite, or hatred.

We don’t have to be harsh or abrasive, but we do want to be prayerfully understandable for both The Christian and non-Christian alike.

So let us be willing to accept the reality that we find ourselves in, and to be full of prayer in it in order than we can travel through that situation as God wants us to, as Jesus said, “not my will, but Your will be done!”