Faith Bible Study Guide
To believe with the heart means to believe with the spirit – the inward man. How does our spirit get faith that our intellect cannot obtain? Through reading and meditating on the Word. Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “. . . Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Jesus is speaking here of spiritual food. He is using the natural human idea – bread – to convey a spiritual thought. The Word is spirit and faith food. The Word of God is to the spirit of man what natural food is to the body of man. Our spirits become filled with assurance and confidence as we meditate in the Word. For many years, I walked by faith for our finances, for all my physical needs, and while our children were small, for all of their physical needs too. After our children grew up, they had to use their own faith. I know that the Word of God is the food that builds the spirit of man. The Word of God is the food that makes our spirits strong and that gives us quiet assurance and confidence.
We know that to believe with the heart is to believe with the spirit, the real man, or the inner man. Actually, to believe with the heart means to believe apart from what your physical body may tell you or what your physical senses may tell you. You see, the body, the physical or outward man, know whether it was broken or not. However, I could see it was in bad shape. I began to recall what the Word of God says. I called God’s attention to the fact that my eyes could see and that my human senses told me that my ankle could be broken and that it was seriously hurt. I could sure feel it hurting and throbbing. But I called God’s attention and the devil’s attention to the fact that the Word of God says that I’m healed.
I know people in the natural (even some Full Gospel folks who are always in the natural realm) will think a person is strange for believing God’s Word even more than their physical senses. But remember, if you want to walk by faith, the Word must be superior to everything else and anything else. As I put God in remembrance of His Word and stood on the Word in faith, my ankle was healed. The next day I got up and drove my car nearly one hundred miles to a meeting. And thank God, as I’ve continued to follow that same principle of faith, I’ve continued to walk in divine health these many years.
I once heard several people telling of a certain minister’s testimony. When I was at his church, I had him tell his testimony firsthand. This minister was at a youth camp, and during their recreation time they were playing ball and he slid into third base and broke his ankle. In fact, part of the bone was sticking out through the skin. Those around him said they had better get him into town to a doctor. But one of the ministers asked him if he wanted medical help or if he wanted to receive healing from God. He said he would rather receive healing from God.
“All right,” this other minister said, “you can. I’ve been in the Pentecostal movement since the beginning,” and he began to tell him about broken bones he had seen healed.
That other minister sat out there next to third base and talked to that fellow for about forty minutes and got his mind off of his ankle and his foot. Then he told him to get up, and the minute he put his broken foot on the ground, he fainted and fell to the ground. The other minister worked to revive him and talked with him another forty minutes. He got him up on his good foot again, and when he put weight on the injured foot, he fainted and fell again.
This other minister got him revived and he said, “We’re missing it somewhere.” So he prayed, “God, where are we missing it?” And then he said, “Oh, I see. I see it! Now, Son, this time when you get up, don’t get up on your good foot. Get up on your bad foot.” As he did that in faith, it never hurt a bit and instantly it was perfectly healed!
Believing with your heart is believing independent of your sense knowledge. I tell you, some of those old timers knew what faith was. Dr. Lilian B. Yeomans had this to say in one of her books and her books are some of the finest you can read on the subject of healing: “God delights in his children stepping out over the aching void with nothing underneath their feet but the Word of God.” Dr. Yeomans also said that to look to see whether God is healing you is a sin.
A certain minister once told me that he was in one of Dr. Yeomans’ classes when she taught in a Bible school. She always prayed for the students in her class and had healing services in her classes. He told me, “I went up and asked her to pray for me.” She responded, “What for?” She spoke very boldly and with authority.
He replied, “I want you to pray for my cold.” And she said, “Your cold? Well, if it’s your cold, there’s no use praying for it. You’ve already accepted it and you won’t get any healing. Now if you want to be delivered from the devil’s cold, all right.”
He said, “That’s what I mean.” She responded, “Say what you mean.”
This is the reason a lot of people are defeated. They accept defeat and claim it as theirs. But the Word says in First John 4:4 that the Greater One is in us. He rises up in us and we know we cannot be conquered. We know because we believe that in our hearts! believes in what he sees with his physical eyes or in what he hears with his physical ears or in what his physical feelings tell him.
But the man on the inside – the spirit or the heart of man – believes in the Word regardless of seeing, hearing, or feeling. His believing does not depend on sense knowledge; it depends on the Word of God. Some people are prayed for again and again and again about the same situation or circumstance. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t come back and be prayed for the second time for healing if you need to. I’m saying there are folks who come for prayer for the same things again and again and again. Those folks who are prayed for again and again and do not get their healing, do not have faith in the Word.
In other words, if they do not see that they are healed or if they do not have some physical evidence, they won’t believe they are healed. And that’s not what the Bible
teaches. They do have a natural human faith. However, natural, human faith and heart faith are two different kinds of faith. If you will believe the Word of God first, the physical evidence will take care of itself. You won’t have to worry about the physical evidence or manifestation.
Our faith must be based upon what the Word says. So then to believe with all of our heart is to believe with our spirit. To believe with all of our heart is to believe independently of our heads or of our bodies.
PROVERBS 3:5
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine HEART; and lean not unto thine own understanding [or your mind].
I think most folks practice this scripture, all right, but they practice it in reverse! They trust with all of their understanding and lean not to their own heart. It’s the same thing people do with James 1:19. They practice what James tells us in verse 19, only in reverse. In his epistle James says, “… let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19). Most of us practice that, but we practice it in reverse. We are swift to speak and swift to wrath and slow to hear. But that’s not what James said.
The Bible goes on to say in Proverbs, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. BE NOT WISE IN THINE OWN EYES …” (Prov. 3:6,7). What the Bible is saying is this: “Don’t be wise with natural human knowledge which would lead you to repudiate or to act independently of the Word of God.”