The one thing most Christians will never do, even though Jesus commanded it.
Let me tell you about a young woman who stood in front of a church congregation with a goiter the size of an orange bulging from her neck.
She had just been prayed for the night before, and now she was on her feet testifying with absolute confidence, The Lord wonderfully healed me last night.
But here’s what you need to know. When she said those words, that goiter was still there. Every eye in that room could see it. Her own mother could see it. And she would testify of her healing for two more years while that thing remained visible on her neck.
Most Christians would call that woman delusional. Some would say she was lying. Others would feel sorry for her misguided faith.
But I’m going to tell you what happened, and when you hear the end of this story, you’ll understand something about faith that will revolutionize your relationship with God.
This is about the kind of faith that Jesus himself spoke of in Mark 11:24 when he declared, Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
Let me tell you what happened to this young woman, and why most believers today will never experience what she experienced.
I was conducting meetings in Bury, Lancashire, and this young woman came from a nearby town called Ramsbottom. Before she even left her house to come to that first meeting, she said something to her mother that most Christians would never dare say, I am going to be healed of this goiter, mother. Not, I hope to be healed. Not, Maybe God will heal me. She declared it as fact before anything happened.
She came to that first meeting, and when the call for healing came, she rushed forward.
I laid hands on her and prayed and the power of God touched her the next service she was on her feet giving testimony.
I have been wonderfully healed she proclaimed her face was radiant her voice was strong and that goiter was still visibly protruding from her neck. She went home and told her mother. I shall be so happy to tell you that I have been wonderfully healed. Can you imagine what her mother must have thought. Can you picture the confusion in that household?
But this young woman had touched something that most believers never lay hold of.
She had grasped the reality of Hebrews 11:1, which declares, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The next year, our convention came around again, and here she came. That goitre looked just as big as ever to the natural eye. Some people whispered, others shook their heads. But when testimony time came, that woman was on her feet again and listened to what she said.
I was here last year, and the Lord wonderfully healed me. I want to tell you that this has been the best year of my life,
The best year of her life, while walking around with a visible goiter.
She wasn’t denying what people could see. She was declaring what God had done. And beloved, there’s a massive difference between those two things.
She went home again, blessed beyond measure, testifying everywhere she went about her healing.
The third year rolls around, and she’s back at our meetings. Some folks looked at her and said to each other, That goitre has gotten even bigger.
But did that change her testimony? Not one bit. When the moment came, she stood up again. Two years ago, the Lord graciously healed me of goitre. Oh I had a most wonderful healing it is grand to be healed by the power of God. Now someone in that meeting couldn’t take it anymore, they confronted her after the service. People will think there is something the matter with you. They said why don’t you look in the glass you will see your goiter is bigger than ever.
What would you have done in that moment. Would you have wavered, would you have started to doubt, would you have said Well maybe I was wrong. But listen to what this woman did.
She went to the Lord about it. She didn’t go into a panic. She didn’t fall into unbelief.
She simply prayed, Lord, you so wonderfully healed me two years ago. Won’t you show all the people that you healed me?
She went to sleep that night, peacefully, still believing God. And when she came down the next morning, there was not a trace or mark of that goiter anywhere on her body. It was completely gone. Can somebody say amen?
Now, you might be thinking, why did it take two years? But that’s the wrong question.
The real question is, why did she keep believing when nothing changed for two years?
And here’s your answer. She had laid hold of something that Peter writes about in 2 Peter 1:4. He says, We have been given exceedingly great and precious promises. that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature. Did you hear that? Partakers of the divine nature, not just forgiven sinners, not just people trying to be good Christians. We’re called to partake of God’s very nature.
And what is God’s nature?
John 4:24, God is Spirit.
He doesn’t change. He doesn’t waver. He doesn’t look at circumstances. When God says something, it is done.
That woman understood something that revolutionized her life. She understood that faith is not hoping for something. Faith is not wishing for something.
Hebrew 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
It’s substance. It’s evidence. When you believe God, you have already received it in the spirit realm.
The manifestation in the natural realm may take time, but in God’s economy, it’s already finished.
You see, beloved, faith never looks in the glass. Faith has a different glass to look into.
James 1:25 but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
When you look into God’s perfect law of liberty, all darkness is removed. You see your completeness in Christ. You see what God has already accomplished.
Now let me tell you why so many Christians never experience what that woman experienced.
It’s written about our Blessed Lord in Hebrews 1:9, You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions.
Did you catch that? Loving righteousness and hating iniquity is what releases the anointing.
It is the purpose of God that we, as we are indwelt by the Spirit of his Son, should likewise love righteousness and hate iniquity.
I see that there is a place for us in Christ Jesus, where we are no longer under condemnation, but where the heavens are always open to us.
I see that God has a realm of divine life opening up to us where there are boundless possibilities, where there is limitless power, where there are untold resources, where we have victory over all the power of the devil.
Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:2, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Did you hear that word multiplied? Not just given, multiplied.
We can have the multiplication of this grace and peace only as we live in the realm of faith.
Think about Abraham. He became a friend of God on no other line than that of believing God.
Romans 4:3 declares, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Righteousness was imputed to him on no other ground than that he believed God.
And here’s the promise: the blessing that came to Abraham because he believed God is available to every person in the whole wide world who is saved by faith.
After I was baptized with the Holy Ghost, the Lord gave me a blessed revelation. I saw Adam and Eve turned out of the garden for their disobedience, unable to partake of the Tree of Life because the cherubim with flaming sword kept them away from this tree.
But when I was baptized with the Spirit, I saw that I had begun to eat of this tree of life. And that flaming sword? It was still there, but now it was keeping the devil away from me.
Oh, what privileges are ours when we are born of God.
1 John 5:18 promises us, We know that whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God keeps himself. and the wicked one does not touch him.
How marvelously he keeps us so that the wicked one cannot touch us. I see a place in God where Satan dare not come, hidden in God.
Psalm 91 verse 1 invites us, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Now let me share something that will blow your mind.
2 peter 1:3-4 His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature.
Listen to what happened one day when I was holding an open-air meeting. My uncle came and said, ‘Aunt Mary would like to see you before she dies.’ I went to see her, and she was assuredly dying. You could see it. Everyone knew it.
But I said, ‘Lord, can’t you do something?’ All I did was stretch out my hands and lay them on her, and it seemed as though there was an immediate impartation of the glory and virtue of the Lord.
Aunt Mary cried out, It is going all over my body. That very day, she was made perfectly whole.
Another time I was preaching, and a man brought a boy who was wrapped up in bandages. This boy was in irons. He couldn’t walk. It was so difficult for them to get him to the platform that they had to pass him over about six seats.
But the power of the Lord was present to heal.
When I placed my hands on that child, the power entered right into him. The boy cried, Daddy, it is going all over me.
They stripped off the bandages and the irons, and there was nothing imperfect in him, not one thing.
Remember when that woman touched the hem of Jesus’ garment in Luke 8?
Jesus perceived that power had gone out of him.
The woman’s faith laid hold, and this power was imparted, and immediately her weakness departed.
Mark 5:29 says, Immediately, the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction.
Some people are tied up because when they are prayed for, the thing they are expecting doesn’t come that same night.
They say they believe, but you can see that they are really in turmoil of unbelief.
But real faith, the kind Abraham had, looks different. You can hear Abraham saying to Sarah, Sarah, There is no life in you and there is nothing in me. But God has promised us a son, and I believe God.
Romans 19-20 says of Abraham, And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.
That kind of faith is a joy to our Father in heaven. God rejoices when we manifest a faith that holds him to his word.
What was the difference between Zacharias and Mary when the angel appeared to them the angel came to Zacharias in Luke 1:13 and told him your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son but Zacharias questioned it saying in verse 18 how shall I know this for I am an old man and my wife is well advanced in years
Gabriel rebuked him for his unbelief and told him in verse 20 you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place because you did not believe my words
But note the contrast when the angel came to Mary in Luke 1:38 she said behold the maidservant of the Lord let it be to me according to your word and Elizabeth greeted Mary with these words in verse 45 blessed is she who believed for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.
God would have us to lay hold on his word in like manner. He would have us to come with boldness of faith, declaring, You have promised it, Lord. Now do it.
Can we get there, church? Here’s what I want to say to you today, and this is going to challenge everything in your religious comfort zone.
Most Christians are content to be blessed. They’re happy to come to church, sing the songs, hear a nice message, and go home unchanged. But that’s not what God called you to.
Jesus said in Mark 16:17-18, These signs will follow those who just believe and stay comfortable.
No, he declared, and these signs will follow those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.
Did you hear that? You will lay hands on the sick. Not the pastor will. Not the evangelist will. You will.
But here’s the problem. Most Christians will never lay hands on anyone. They will never step out in faith to minister healing. They will never dare to believe that God’s power can flow through them. Why?
Because it’s easier to play it safe. It’s more comfortable to leave the ministry to the professionals. It’s less risky to just pray quietly and hope something happens, rather than to boldly declare God’s word and lay hands on the sick expecting miracles.
But beloved, the Lord would have us to be walking epistles of his word. Jesus is the word, and he is the power in us, and it is his desire to work in and through us his own good pleasure. We must believe that he is in us.
John 14:12 records Jesus saying, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father.
Greater works, not the same works. Greater works.
But we will never do them if we don’t step out and act on our faith.
Here’s your challenge today: find someone this week who needs healing and lay hands on them.
Don’t wait for permission don’t wait until you feel anointed enough don’t wait until you’ve read more books or attended more conferences Jesus has already given you the authority.
Luke 10:19 declares behold I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you
The exceeding great and precious promises of the word are given to us that we might be partakers of the divine nature. I feel the Holy Ghost is grieved with us because when we know these things, we do not do greater exploits for God. Does not the Holy Ghost show us wide-open doors of opportunity? Shall we not let God take us on to greater things? Shall we not believe God to take us on to greater manifestations of his power?
Philippians 3:13-14 exhorts us to forget those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
There are boundless possibilities for us if we dare to act in God and dare to believe that the wonderful virtue of our living Christ shall be made manifest through us as we lay our hands on the sick in his name.
The call of God for us is not to settle, not to get comfortable, not to play it safe. His call is to press forward into greater dimensions of his power.
When we believe God, there is no knowing where the blessing of our faith will end. It doesn’t just affect us. It affects everyone around us.
That woman with the goiter didn’t just get healed for herself. Her testimony is still blessing people decades later.
Your faith, when it lays hold of God’s promises, will create a ripple effect that touches generations.
Brothers and sisters, here’s what you need to understand: holiness opens the door to all the treasures of God. God must first bring us to the place where we, like our Lord, love righteousness and hate iniquity before he opens up to us these good treasures.
Psalm 66:18 warns, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.
But it is only as we are made righteous and pure and holy through the precious blood of God’s Son that we can enter into this life of holiness and righteousness in him.
It is the righteousness of our Lord himself made real in us as our faith is stayed in him. This is not about trying harder or being good enough. This is about receiving by faith what Christ has already accomplished.
2 Corinthians 5:21 declares, For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
You are the righteousness of God in Christ, not because of what you’ve done, but because of what he has done.
When you understand this, when you truly grasp that you have been made righteous by the blood of Jesus, then you can approach God with confidence.
Hebrews 4:16 invites us, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
I see that there is a place for us in Christ Jesus, where we are no longer under condemnation, but where the heavens are always open to us.
I see that God has a realm of divine life opening up to us, where there are boundless possibilities, where there is limitless power, where there are untold resources where we have victory over all the power of the devil.
That young woman with the goiter chose to believe God’s word over what her eyes could see. She chose to stand on the promises of God even when everyone around her thought she was foolish. She chose to keep testifying to her healing even when the symptoms remained. And after two years of unwavering faith she saw the complete manifestation of what she had believed from day one.
The question is, will you do the same? Will you dare to believe God’s word more than you believe your circumstances? Will you step out and lay hands on the sick, expecting the power of God to flow through you? Will you press forward into greater exploits for God, or will you settle for spiritual mediocrity like most Christians do?
The exceeding great and precious promises are yours. The divine nature is available to you. The authority to minister healing has been given to you. The power to do greater works is resident within you. Everything you need for life and godliness has already been provided through the knowledge of Him who called you by glory and virtue.
Now it’s time to act on what you know. It’s time to step out in faith. It’s time to believe God for the impossible. It’s time to lay hands on the sick and watch them recover. It’s time to press into the fullness of everything Christ died to give you. Glory be to God. Can you say amen?
Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, I pray for every person reading this message right now. Lord, I ask that you would stir up a holy dissatisfaction with spiritual mediocrity.
Ignite within them a hunger for your power and a boldness to act on your word.
Break off every chain of fear, doubt, and unbelief.
Release them into the fullness of their divine calling as partakers of your nature.
I declare right now that they will no longer be content to sit on the sidelines. They will lay hands on the sick and see them recover. They will cast out demons in your name. They will speak your word with boldness and watch miracles manifest. Give them persistence like that woman with the goiter, faith that refuses to waver no matter how long the manifestation takes. Anoint them with the oil of gladness as they love righteousness and hate iniquity. Open the heavens over them and multiply grace and peace in their lives. Let them taste and see that you are good and let them become walking testimonies of your resurrection power. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.
I believe with all my heart that as you’ve learned about partaking of God’s divine nature today, you’ve been activated into a new dimension of faith.
The understanding you’ve gained about persistent, unwavering belief is already working in your life to produce miracles.
Do you believe God over what you see? Choose to believe God’s Word over your circumstances.
Your testimony might encourage someone else today who is struggling to hold on to their faith.
We need the kind of word that will help us grow spiritually and walk in the authority Christ intended for us.
Find one person who needs healing and lay hands on them in Jesus’ name. Don’t analyze it, don’t overthink it, just do it.
Declare God’s Word over them and expect the power to flow. Start acting on your faith today and watch what God does.
Now, if this message about persistent faith stirred something in you, you need to get ready to go to the next level in God.
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By Smith Wigglesworth