Faith is and will always be a personal issue, and faith is
based on the word of God only, every other ground is sinking sand. The purpose
of this short piece is to open our eyes to some of the subtle tricks of the
enemy to diffuse our faith and make it impotent such that we get little or no
results in our walk of faith.
There are so many believers out there who are basing their
faith on the experiences of other people, whether positive or negative
experiences. It may appear fine if those experiences were positive experiences,
but it isn’t altogether right, and in the case where the experiences are
negative, it will completely drown your faith.
Now, I am aware that there are Christians who never seem to
require faith or who never seem to use their faith so to say, because they
always have an alternative to faith. But sooner than later there will come a
time that you will have to stand for yourself in faith, and the true worth of
your faith will show forth. While I acknowledge that there are Christians who
never seem to put their faith to work, there are also Christians who in trying
to put their faith to work, and basing their faith on the experiences of
others. The experiences of others should never serve as the basis for your
faith, whether those experiences are positive or negative. The reason that is
so is because God deals with us on the basis of His word and not based on the
experiences of others. God did not intend for every one of us to have exactly
the same experiences, but He intends for all of us to be beneficiaries of His
promises. It is not to say that we cannot look at the testimonies of other
people and be encouraged by them, but that it cannot be the basis on which God
will come through for you. The basis on which God will come through for you is
that His word says He will do so, it is that simple. You cannot go to God for
instance and ask Him to heal you just because you heard He healed Mr. A, that
will not be a firm ground for your faith to stand upon, but you can go to God and
ask Him to heal you because it is contained in His word that He is the God that
heals you.
You will be making a mistake to assume that God will do it
for you just because He has done it for Mr. A, it isn’t exactly so. I know God
is no respecter of persons as you also know, but Mr. A perhaps has a basis for
demanding that God should do something for Him based on His written word and so
he got it, but you have no basis other than the fact that you heard that God
did it for Mr. A. Really, it is like asking me to give you N1000 because you
saw that I gave someone standing by N1000 without knowing the basis on which I
gave out the N1000. Now, many believers get really worked up because God seems
to be partial, He has done it for Mr. A, they want the same thing but God seems
to have refused to do it for them. This is what it is like when you are basing
your faith on the experiences of others.
Like I said earlier the place of the positive experiences of
others is to encourage your faith, it shouldn’t be the ground on which your
faith is standing, remember that all other ground apart from the word of God is
sinking sand.
On the other hand, you will also observe that as you attempt
to exercise your faith, the devil will also attempt to flood your mind with
several experiences of others who like you tried to put their faith to work and
got no result. His aim is to make you abandon your faith even before you ever
get started on it. Unfortunately for many believers, they fall prey to this
trick of the enemy. It could be that you are exercising faith for healing, the
devil will come up with a roll-call or people who supposedly have more faith
than you do and died believing God for same thing or something similar.
Whatever it is you believing for, trust me, the devil has an experience of
someone who believed for same and didn’t get it, and he will gladly share the
experience with you just to paralyze your faith.
The reason why it is easy for believers to fall pray for this
old trick of the devil is because like we said earlier they are basing faith on
the experiences of others, this time obviously a negative experience. Your
faith must be based purely on the word of God. What does the word of God say
about your situation? Take that and run with it, discountenance any person’s
experience that the devil tries to bring to your mind with regards to how they failed
while believing God for the same thing or something similar. So if you are
believing God for your healing, look for what the word says about your healing
and run with it. Ignore the experiences of others who have died while believing
for their healing, their experience is not enough to render the word of no
effect. If you choose to look at the experiences of such people, your faith
will hang on their experience and you are likely to end up just like them.
Whatever their status may have been, whether they were committed Christians or
even ministers of the gospel, let the word be true and every other experience a
liar. Remember that in the walk of faith we speak for ourselves because faith
is and will always be a personal walk, so don’t let someone else’s experience
limit your blessing.
We said if you must look to the experience of others, it must
be the experience of those who through faith dominated their circumstances. Note
again that you are not to base your faith on the positive experiences, they are
only there to encourage your faith. When David stood to confront the giant, he
was doing so on the basis of the covenant in the word, he would not watch an uncircumcised
Philistine defy the army of Israel. The experiences of his encounter with the
Lion and the bear only served to encourage his faith.
Over the years, I have had several personal experiences where
the devil tried to get me to focus on the experiences of those who failed
trying to believe God for the same thing just like me. Many of those times, the
devil will bring up people I respected and whom I believe had developed their
faith far better than I had done, but couldn’t eventually pull through with
their faith. I simply refused to focus on those peoples’ experiences because my
faith is based on the word of God and not on their experiences. They may have
failed in their attempt but the word of God assures me that my faith will pull
through and since I know that God isn’t a respecter of persons, I simply hang
on to my faith rather than allow myself to be discouraged.
Your faith is good enough to pull you through if only you
will stand on the ground of the word of God and refuse to be distracted, the
experiences of others notwithstanding. Let the positive experiences of others
encourage you but don’t let it be the ground on which your faith is standing. As
you stand your ground in faith, I see you overcoming every challenge confronting
you by the power of God.
N.B
For questions on this subject and other subjects, kindly use the Prayer request/Testimony pane. You can also send me an email or reach me by Phone on 08081249992
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