Who hasn’t heard of the expression “blind faith”? People use it to explain trust in something or someone they can’t be sure is trustworthy. That’s how I thought faith in God was. Stepping out and trusting God was like taking a leap of faith. I mean, you can’t see God. You can’t perceive Him with any of the five senses. You have to believe the Bible without fully knowing it’s true, right?
Then Andrew comes along and says, “You have an ability to know things by your spirit that you don’t know in just the natural realm.”
If you didn’t hear Andrew say this on the Gospel Truth last week, you might be wondering how blind faith fits into that. (That’s what I would have wondered.)
“I’m not talking about blind faith where you just hear what I say or [what] somebody else says, and you just base your whole life on it.” Andrew continues, “But I’m saying you go to the Word of God. You take the truths of the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit will bear witness and confirm to you and say, ‘Yes, this is true.’ It’s an inspired Word of God, and it will inspire you.”
Excuse me, Andrew, but . . . whaaaaat?
Second Corinthians 4:17-18 says, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;[18] While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” After sharing these words of Paul, Andrew asks, “Did you know, to only a person who’s going by their sight, by their physical senses, this just doesn’t make a lick of sense right here. . . . If they can’t be seen, then how do you look at them?”
Yeah, how does that work, Andrew?
“Faith is how you look into the spiritual realm through the truths revealed in the Word of God, quickened to you by the Holy Spirit, and you can perceive things in the spirit.”
Ah, so it’s a revelation.
“Faith is something that is based on seeing things that can’t be seen.”
Fascinating! That sounds a lot like what Philemon 6 says:
That the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
New King James Version
I did some study on the word “acknowledgment” in this verse. It means “discernment” and is a derivative of a Greek word translated “perceive” (Strong’s Concordance). Basically, this is saying that for my faith to work, I have to see—present tense—something.
Well, that explains why, at times, I struggled to receive from God. I would believe what the Bible says concerning healing or finances, confessing and standing on a promise. But while those things are good and even needful, those promises hadn’t been quickened, enlivened, or made real to me. I didn’t see them, really see them. I found myself dealing with a long, drawn-out battle. Sometimes, I received. Sometimes, I didn’t.
It was when I really began to see with my spirit, and I allowed God’s promises to become real to me, that I received from God more quickly and easily. True biblical faith isn’t blind. Do you see?
If you have a testimony of how this truth has worked for you, please share it in the comment section below. Also, if this is totally new to you, but you “see” what Andrew is talking about in his teaching Faith Builders, we would love to hear your thoughts as well.
