When your faith runs out, the secret every struggling Christian needs to know.
Brethren, I was just coming home from our open-air meeting at around eleven o’clock, when a woman rushed down the stairs, her face twisted in anguish, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘He’s gone! He’s gone!’ she screamed.
Behind her, in an upstairs bedroom, lay her husband, cold, lifeless. Gone. The doctor had already left. The family had gathered. Death had won. Or had it.
What happened in that room in the next few minutes will challenge everything you think you know about faith.
Because there’s a kind of faith that goes beyond your ability to believe. There’s a faith that laughs at death itself.
1 Corinthians 12:8-9, Paul writes about the gifts of the Spirit. He declares, To another, the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit, to another faith, by the same Spirit.
Church, I want to talk to you today about a gift that most Christians have never experienced. A gift that can raise the dead. A gift that can open deaf ears sixty yards away. A gift that can turn your impossible situations into testimonies of God’s glory.
Let me tell you what happened in that room where Death thought it had the final word.
The moment I walked through the door, I knew something was wrong. Where is she? I asked, looking for my wife. She’s down at Mitchell’s house. My heart sank. I had seen Brother Mitchell earlier that very day.
The man was at Death’s door. There was no question about it. I knew that unless the Lord undertook something supernatural, Mitchell wouldn’t survive the day.
I rushed down to the house, but as I got near, I heard the most terrible screams you can imagine. Something had happened, something bad.
Mrs. Mitchell met me on the staircase, her face pale as a ghost. What’s happened? I demanded. He’s gone! He’s gone! she cried out.
I pushed past her and went straight into the room. The moment I saw Mitchell, I knew what she meant. He was dead. Stone Dead.
But something rose up inside me, something that wasn’t my faith. I began to pray.
My wife grabbed my arm. Don’t, Dad. Don’t you see that he’s dead? But I kept praying. She pulled at me again. Don’t, Dad. Don’t you see that he is dead? I continued praying.
Listen, I got as far as I could with my own faith. You know what I’m talking about. We all hit that wall sometimes but then something happened.
God laid hold of me, oh, it was such a laying hold that I could have believed for anything. The faith of the Lord Jesus Christ took over and a solid immovable peace flooded my heart.
I shouted at the top of my lungs he lives; he lives, he lives and brothers and sisters Mitchell is living today.
You see there is a massive difference between your faith and the faith of Jesus Christ.
Your faith can waver. Your faith can hit a wall. Your faith can run out. But the faith of Christ? It never wavers.
When you have that faith, the thing is already finished. When you operate in that faith, you don’t look at circumstances.
You see the things of nature bow to the things of the Spirit. You see the temporal swallowed up by the eternal.
Let me explain something that will revolutionize your understanding. There are two distinct positions of faith that every believer needs to know about.
First, there is saving faith.
Ephesians 2:8 tells us, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.
This is the faith that brings you into the kingdom. It’s God’s gift to you, and nothing can take it away.
Second, there is the gift of faith, a supernatural manifestation of the Spirit that enables you to believe for the impossible.
1 Corinthians 12: 9 to another faith by the same Spirit.
Now, here’s what most Christians never understand. Your faith comes to an end. Mine does too.
How many times have I been in a situation where I had to tell the Lord, I have used all the faith I have, but you know what happens in that moment? He places his own faith within you.
One of our workers came to me at Christmas time and said, I’ve never been so near the end of my purse in my life. I looked at him and smiled.
Thank God, I said. You’re just at the opening of God’s treasures. You see, it’s when we reach the end of our own resources that we can enter into the riches of God’s resources. When we possess nothing, that’s when we can possess all things.
But here’s where it gets interesting. The Lord will always meet you when you’re on the line of living faith.
Let me tell you about something that happened when I was in Ireland. I went to a house looking for Brother Wallace, but he had gone to Bangor. The lady who answered the door looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, oh, God has sent you here for me. I need you. Come in. She told me her story.
Her husband was a deacon of the Presbyterian Church. She had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost while attending that church, but they didn’t accept it as from God. The church leaders confronted her husband. This cannot go on. We don’t want you to be deacon any longer, and your wife is not wanted in the church. The man became enraged. It was as though an evil spirit possessed him. The peaceful home turned into a war zone.
Finally, he left his wife, walked out, and didn’t leave a penny behind. What should I do?” she asked me, desperation in her voice. We went to prayer.
But before we had prayed five minutes, this woman was mightily filled with the Holy Ghost. I mean mightily. The power of God was all over her.
I said to her, “Sit down”. Let me talk to you. Are you often in the spirit like this? Yes, she answered. What could I do without the Holy Ghost now?
Listen carefully, I told her. The situation is yours. The word of God in 1 Corinthians 7:14 says that you have power to sanctify your husband.
Dare to believe the word of God. Now the first thing we must do is pray that your husband comes back tonight. I know he won’t, she said flatly. If we agree together, it is done, I replied. Will you agree with me? I will agree. Good. Now here’s what you do.
When he comes home, show him all possible love. Lavish everything upon him. If he won’t hear what you have to say, let him go to bed. But the situation is yours. Get down before God and claim him for the Lord.
Get into the glory, just as you have today. And as the Spirit of God prays through you, you will find that God will grant all the desires of your heart.
A month later, I saw this sister at a convention. Her face was glowing. She grabbed my arm and said, you won’t believe what happened. Her husband came home that very night, just as we had prayed. He went to bed without saying much, but she didn’t give up. She got down before God and prayed right through to victory. Then, filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, she went and laid her hands upon him. The moment, and I mean the very moment, she laid hands on him. He cried out for mercy.
The Lord saved him right there in that bed and baptized him in the Holy Spirit. Glory to God.
The power of God is beyond all our conception. The trouble is that we don’t have the power of God in full manifestation because of our limited, finite thoughts.
But as we go on and let God have his way, there is no limit to what our limitless God will do, in response to limitless faith.
But you will never get anywhere unless you are in constant pursuit of all the power of God. Now let me share something that will help you understand how these gifts operate.
Thousands of people read and study the Word of God, but it’s not quickened to them. The Bible is a dead letter, except by the Spirit. The Word of God can never be vital and powerful in us, except by the Spirit.
John 6:63, The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
His words weren’t just dead words they were spirit and life. It’s God’s plan that a living word, a word of truth, the word of God, a supernatural word of knowledge, shall come forth from us through the power of the Spirit of God.
It is the Holy Ghost who will bring forth utterances from our lips and a divine revelation of all the mind of God. The child of God ought to thirst for the Word. He should know nothing else but the Word.
Matthew 4:4 Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
It is as we feed on the Word and meditate on it that the Spirit of God can vitalize what we have received and bring forth through us the word of knowledge that will be as full of power and life as when he, the Spirit of God, moved upon holy men of old and gave them these inspired scriptures.
When faith becomes sight, every single time I got up to speak, this man would move his chair right up to the platform. He’d get as close as he could and strain his ears, trying to catch what I was saying.
The devil whispered, it isn’t done! I declared out loud, it is done! This went on for three entire weeks. Every service, same thing.
The devil saying, See? Nothing happened. Me saying, it is done! Then the manifestation came.
Suddenly, that man could hear distinctly from sixty yards away. When his ears were opened, he thought it was so great that he had to stop the entire meeting to tell everybody about it.
I met him recently in Oakland, and he was still hearing perfectly. You see, as we remain steadfast and unmovable on the ground of faith, we shall see what we believe for come into perfect manifestation.
Most Christians give up too soon. They pray once, twice, maybe three times, and then they quit.
But the gift of faith holds on until the manifestation comes. This is how the gift of faith manifests. You see a situation and you know that your own faith is nothing in that moment. Something greater takes over.
The other day I was in San Francisco, sitting on a streetcar. I looked out and saw a boy in great agony on the street. Something leaped inside me. I said to the conductor, let me get out. I rushed to where the boy was. He was doubled over in agony with severe stomach cramps.
I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t check if anyone was watching. I put my hands on his stomach and commanded, In the name of Jesus. The boy jumped. He stared at me with absolute astonishment. He found himself instantly free from all pain.
The gift of faith dares in the face of everything. When you are in the Spirit, the Spirit of God will operate this gift anywhere and at any time. Do you remember when Jesus was in the synagogue and saw the man with the withered hand?
Mark 3:3-5 tells us that Jesus said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
The gift of faith always knows the results before they happen. Jesus got all the people to look and see what would happen. He wasn’t living on the line of speculation. He spoke, and something happened.
At the beginning, in Genesis 1:3, he spoke and said, Let there be light. And there was light.
He spoke, and the world came into being. He speaks today, and these things must come to pass. He is the Son of God, and he came to bring us into sonship. He was the first fruit of the resurrection, and he calls us to be first fruits, to be the same kind of fruit, just like himself.
But here’s an important point that most Christians miss. You cannot have these gifts by mere human desire.
As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:11, The Spirit distributes them severally as he wills. God cannot trust some people with these gifts. But those who have a lowly, broken, contrite heart, those he can trust.
I was once at a convention filled with doctors, eminent men, and many ministers. The power of God fell on the meeting. All these important people were there, waiting to receive.
But who do you think God chose to fill with the Holy Ghost? One humble little girl who waited tables at the convention center. She opened her being to the Lord and was immediately filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in tongues.
All these big men stretched their necks and looked up to see what was happening. Who is it? They whispered to each other. Then they learned it was the servant. These things are hidden and kept back from the wise and prudent.
But as Jesus says in Matthew 11: 25 you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.
The little children, the lowly ones, those are the ones who receive.
We cannot have faith if we seek honor from one another. A man who is going on with God won’t accept honor from his fellow beings.
God honors the man of a broken, contrite spirit. How shall we get there? So many people want to do great things and to be seen doing them. But the one that God will use is the one who is willing to be hidden.
My Lord Jesus never said he could do things. He just did them. When that funeral procession was coming up from Nain with the widow’s son, carried on the bier, what did Jesus do?
Luke 7:13-15 tells us that when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, Do not weep. Then he came and touched the open coffin, and said, Young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
He had compassion for her, and you and I will never do anything except on the line of compassion.
We shall never be able to remove the cancer, cast out the demon, or raise the dead, until we are immersed so deeply into the power of the Holy Ghost that the compassion of Christ is moving through us.
I find that in all my Lord did. He said that he did not do it, but that another in him did the work. What holy submission!
John 5:19 records Jesus saying, Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do. For whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner. He was just an instrument for the glory of God. Have we reached a place where we dare to be trusted with these gifts?
Paul makes it crystal clear in 1 Corinthians 13:2, Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.
If I have faith to remove mountains but have not love, all is a failure.
When my love is so deepened in God that I only move for his glory, that I only seek his glory, then the gifts can be made manifest.
God wants to manifest himself and to manifest his glory through humble spirits. But a faint heart can never have a gift. There are two essential things. First, love, and second, determination, a boldness of faith that will cause God to fulfill his word.
Church, let me be brutally honest with you. Most Christians live on language, not faith. They say they believe, but their lives prove otherwise.
I once visited a woman who was dying. I asked her, how are things with you? She answered weakly, I have faith. I believe.
I looked her straight in the eye and said, You know that you don’t have faith. You know that you’re dying. It’s not faith that you have it’s language.
There’s a massive difference between language and faith. She was in the hands of the devil, and there was no possibility of life until he was removed from the premises.
I hate the devil. I laid hold of that woman and shouted, come out, you devil of death! I command you to come out in the name of Jesus. In one minute, she stood on her feet in complete victory.
Most believers will never move past religious language into actual faith. They’ll quote scriptures, attend services, and talk about God’s power, but they’ll never actually operate in it.
They’ll admire the gifts from a distance but never pursue them with their whole heart.
But you don’t have to be like most Christians. You can press him. You can pursue. You can pay the price of humility and brokenness that causes God to trust you with his power.
Are you willing to be hidden so God can be seen? Are you willing to decrease so he can increase? Are you willing to let your faith run out so his faith can take over?
Let me tell you how God taught me about asking for what I need. When I was baptized in the Spirit, I had a wonderful time and spoke in tongues.
But for some time afterwards, I didn’t speak in tongues again. Then one day, as I was helping another believer, the Lord again gave me utterances in the Spirit.
One day, I was going down the road, speaking in tongues for a long while. Some gardeners working nearby stuck their heads out to see what was going on. I said, “Lord, you have something new for me”.
1 Corinthians 14:13 says, therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.
I ask for the interpretation, and I’ll stay right here until I get it. And from that very hour, the Lord gave me interpretation.
Don’t just accept where you are spiritually. Press in for more. God has more for you than you’ve ever imagined. But you must be hungry. You must be desperate. you must refuse to settle for spiritual mediocrity.
I was once in Lincolnshire England and met an old pastor of an Episcopalian church he became interested in what I was sharing and invited me into his library. I never heard anything sweeter than the prayer that old man prayed as he knelt down he began Lord, make me holy Lord, sanctify me.
I called out Wake up! Wake up now! Get up and sit in your chair. He sat up and looked at me, startled.
I said to him, I thought you were holy. Yes, he answered. Then what makes you ask God to do what he has already done for you?
He began to laugh, and then he began to speak in tongues. Let us move into the realm of faith and live in the realm of faith and let God have his way.
Stop begging God for what he’s already given you. Start believing his word. Start acting on his promises. Start operating in the gifts he’s already provided.
The scriptures make us wise unto salvation. They open to us the depths of the kingdom of heaven. They reveal the divine mind. But, beloved, they will remain dead letters unless the Spirit quickens them to you.
As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:6, The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
You need the Spirit to make the word alive in you. You need the Spirit to bring forth from you the word of knowledge and the gift of faith.
I must challenge you today. The reason most Christians never experience these gifts is simple. They want the power without the price. They want the anointing without the brokenness. They want the gifts without the character.
But God is looking for those who will humble themselves, those who will pursue him with their whole heart. those who will fast and pray and seek his face until something breaks through from heaven.
Are you willing to be that person? Will you stop being satisfied with church as usual? Will you refuse to join the crowd of lukewarm believers who talk about God’s power but never see it?
Ephesians 2:3-6, Paul urges us to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, for there is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all.
The baptism of the Spirit is meant to make us all one. When the Holy Ghost has full control, Christ is never divided. His body is not divided. There is no division.
But this requires us to die to self, to die to our ambitions, to die to our need for recognition, to die so that Christ can live through us.
Most Christians will never make that choice. They’ll go to their graves with gifts still wrapped up in heaven that were meant for them.
They’ll stand before Jesus and realize they spent their whole lives living far below their spiritual inheritance.
But not you. Not today. Today, you’re going to make a decision. You’re going to pursue God like never before.
You’re going to press into the gifts. You’re going to believe for the impossible.
Because when your faith runs out, his faith is just getting started.
Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, we come before you with hungry hearts. We refuse to be satisfied with religious language when you’ve offered us supernatural faith.
We refuse to settle for knowing about your power when we can operate in it.
Right now, we ask you to baptize us afresh in your Holy Spirit. Give us the gift of faith that laughs at impossibilities.
Give us the word of knowledge that reveals your mind. Break us, humble us, make us vessels you can trust. We declare that we will no longer live by our finite faith, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.
We will no longer be spectators, but participants in your supernatural kingdom. Fill us, use us, and get glory through us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
I believe with all my heart that as you’ve learned about the gift of faith today, something has been activated in your spirit.
The understanding you’ve gained about the difference between your faith and Christ’s faith is already working to transform how you approach impossible situations.
Every single day, spend time in the Word with this question in mind. Holy Spirit, make this Word alive in me. Don’t just read it, let him quicken it to you.
And when you face an impossible situation, declare out loud, my faith may run out, but the faith of Christ in me never fails.
But let me ask you something. What happens when the impossible becomes your daily assignment?
What if I told you there’s a way to operate in healing and miracles so consistently that doctors’ death sentences mean nothing to you?
How do you develop the kind of compassion that moves God to work the miraculous through your hands?
What price must be paid to see cancers dissolve, deaf ears open, and the dead raise not just once but regularly?
And what does God have to break in you before He can trust you with these gifts?
What is the divine preparation process that turns ordinary believers into vessels of miracle-working power, and how to move from knowing about God’s healing power to actually operating in the gifts of healing and miracles in your own life.
By Smith Wigglesworth