Action

There is no such thing as effective faith without corresponding action.  James tells us that faith without works is dead. Dead faith does not produce anything!  Where there is real faith, there will be corresponding action.

James 2:14-26:
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can faith save him?  If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?  Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.”  Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.  You believe that there is one God.  You do well. Even the demons believe – and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?  Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?  And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And so he was called the friend of God.  You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.  Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Action is the only visible proof of your faith.  So-called “faith” that does not involve action is not really faith at all, at least not the kind that can save you or cause you to receive any benefit of your salvation.  The demons believe that there is one God, but they are not saved. This “belief” has never helped them. Why not? They did not act on the truth; instead, they sided with the devil and acted on lies. They will be tormented forever because of their decision.

Faith without action is dead faith.

Faith without action is not the kind of faith discussed in Hebrews 11:1.  It can really be called “mental assent”. John Wesley said that mental assent is the devil’s substitute for faith. How can you tell if someone is in faith or just in mental assent?  It’s easy!  Look at the person’s actions and listen to the person’s words.  They are giveaways.

For example, if someone says to you, “By Jesus’ stripes I am healed. Therefore, I know that God is going to heal me of my arthritis,” you know that the person is not in faith.  His words do not correspond to God’s Word.  At first it seems like a really good statement of faith, but the fact that the person believes God is going to heal him proves that the only thing this person has received so far is arthritis, since he calls it “his” arthritis. He is claiming arthritis, not healing, as his current possession, so he cannot possibly have received healing when he prayed.  He is in hope, not faith.

For another example, if someone says, “I believe in divine healing through Jesus’ stripes, so I’m asking God to heal me of my cancer,” you know that the person is not in faith either.  What the person is really saying is, “I mentally assent to the fact that God provided healing through Christ, but I don’t have a revelation of it on the inside yet. Therefore, I’m asking God to do something that the Bible says He already did about this cancer that I am still calling my possession instead of calling it a curse that does not belong in my body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

Or if someone says on Sunday, “I believe I have received my healing from terminal cancer,” but on Monday he calls all his relatives and says, “You’d better get out here if you want to see me again; it’s not looking very good. Could you call DownCo Discount Morticians and ask about a prepay discount on my funeral?” you know that the person does not really believe he has received anything; his actions give away his real belief that he is going to die anyway.

Or if someone says, “I believe in prosperity and in the concept of seedtime and harvest! Amen to it all!” yet does not give anything in the offering, that person’s faith for prosperity is dead.  If you really believe in sowing and reaping, you will sow and reap! Just believing that it works is absolutely useless if you do not act on it.  It is no better than a farmer saying that he believes that if he plants seed, he will get a crop in the fall, yet planting no seed that year.

We could see in Mark 5 that the lady with the issue of blood needed to mix action with her faith.  She believed that she could be healed by touching Jesus’ clothes, but she did not get healed until the moment she actually touched Jesus’ clothes.  That was real faith; her actions agreed with what she said she believed.

God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning “Father of a Multitude,” and he went around calling himself Father of a Multitude when it looked like he would never have a single child by Sarah – just because he believed God would perform what He has promised. His words lined up with his faith.  Abraham is an example of someone with real faith as opposed to dead faith.

Noah believed God’s warning of a coming flood and built an ark to save his family. It would not have been enough to believe that God was telling the truth; his family was saved only because he acted on what God said.

Faith is not simply assenting to God’s Word with your mind.  Faith is acting on God’s Word. The greats of faith in Hebrews 11 did something because of what they believed. They acted on their faith. That’s why they’re in this “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter.

Kenneth Hagin used to say that people make faith too difficult and that it is easy when you realize that faith is simply acting on the Word of God.  He exhorted people, “Stop trying to believe and start acting on the Word.”

Let’s assume that you have just believed that you have received the healing Christ provided for you from diabetes. The next day, we would expect to hear you say, “Thank God I received my healing yesterday! Thank You, Father, that I am healed no matter what it looks like!” Then, after you get a sugar reading that suggests that you don’t have your healing yet, you say, “Thank You, Jesus, for telling me how to receive by believing when I pray!  Thank You that I have my healing no matter what this test shows!” We would not expect to hear you say, “I guess that faith stuff didn’t work after all.”  That would negate your healing. Many people pray good prayers but then undo their prayers by acting and speaking in ways that do not agree with their (supposed) stand of faith.

Let’s assume that you are believing for a new car because the old clunker you drive drips oil all over the county. Faith would thank God for your new car before you see it.  Faith would rejoice that the Lord is your shepherd and you shall not lack anything, including a decent car.  But mental assent might say, “Yes, God can provide new cars.  But this seems to work for everyone but us. Our car will probably just get worse and worse, and it will probably be so long before we get another car that this one will drip so much oil on our property that the EPA will declare our property a toxic waste site and we will lose everything hiring bulldozers and toxic waste disposal specialists to truck our contaminated soil to Cape Cod and Indiana.  We really should start looking at cheap mobile homes right away, since we’re going to have to sell our house and live in a trailer park before too long.” If we see you at Willy’s Cheap Used Mobile Home Mart the next day, we would probably have to assume that you are in mental assent, not faith, about your new car. Maybe this example sounds silly (it was supposed to be a little silly), but how many times do we find ourselves doing similar things? What you are planning for is a good indication of what you really believe.  Do you plan to take five sick days in a row or do you plan to show up at the office miraculously healed by the power of God?  What do you picture in your mind? That’s usually a good indication of where your real faith is. Faith does not walk by natural sight, but it walks by a better kind of sight that agrees with God’s Word.

One very common way to act contrary to your beliefs is the concept of Plan B.  “Well, I’d like to think God will come through, but we need to stay up at night coming up with Plan B in case He doesn’t.”  Planning in general is a Biblical concept, but planning for God to fail you is not! If you really believe that you receive something, what good is Plan B?  “I believe my eyes are healed, but just in case they aren’t, we really should call the assisted living center and reserve a bed since I won’t be able to care for myself if I can’t see.”  That’s an example of Plan B.

To pray, “Lord, I put this situation into Your hands.  I cast my care on You,” and then worry about the situation for the next two weeks is not faith. Worry is never corresponding action to faith! If you cast something on the Lord, really do it and don’t take it back!  If it’s His issue to deal with, why are you worried about it? Do you think God will fail you?

Think for a minute of all the time you’ve wasted coming up with “what-if” contingency plans for things that never even happened. You wasted all that emotional energy and got almost as wrought up as if the thing had really happened, and it never even did. You got all mad at someone who never even did the thing you were picturing in your head!  Worry is useless and robs you of your energy. It’s not good for you, which is why God tells you not to do it.

Now for the flip side of action…A man was “believing” God for his eyes to be healed and decided to “prove” his faith by taking a driving test without glasses. He failed. What was the problem here?  It wasn’t lack of corresponding action; it was lack of faith for the action to correspond to in the first place!  Doing the right “faith action” still doesn’t produce results if you aren’t really in faith!  Doing something just because someone else who was in faith did it does not mean it will work for you if you aren’t in faith like that other person! If he still needed the glasses at the time, he should have worn them. When you’re healed, you’ll know you don’t need them!  If you have diabetes, you should keep taking insulin or doing whatever else the doctor told you to take until it’s obvious to you and your doctor that what you’re doing is hurting rather than helping because your body is able to produce insulin on its own again.

Faith is not “fake it till you make it.” Faith is believing you receive when you pray and then acting accordingly.  Your actions and words line up with the fact that you have received something by faith before you see it.

We listed inaction as a hindrance to faith.  Peter would never have walked on water if he had not stepped out of that boat when Jesus commanded him to come! His action corresponded to his faith in Jesus.  He was perfectly reasonable to assume – and act accordingly – that if Jesus told him to do it, he could do it, no matter what it looked like. He may have gotten a little wet along the way, but he was the only disciple who walked on water, so I’m not going to knock him!

Did you know that you can have faith to be healed and still not be healed? The man in Acts 14 was in this situation for a short time:

Acts 14:7-10:
And they were preaching the gospel there.  [That’s how faith comes, by hearing the gospel – Romans 10:17.] And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who had never walked.  This man heard Paul speaking [the gospel, which produces faith!].  Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet!”  And he leaped and walked.

Do you see this? The man had faith to be healed, yet he was still sitting there with faith to be healed!  Why wasn’t he walking?  He had not put corresponding action to his faith! As soon as he acted on his faith, he started leaping and walking.  His faith was “dead” as long as it was faith without works, but once his works agreed with his faith, he received his healing right away. It is possible for you to have enough faith to be healed and be stopped not by unbelief but by inaction.

Do you know why we don’t see many sick people healed because Christians lay hands on them? Because there aren’t many Christians laying hands on sick people!  You might not feel like you’re Benny Hinn when you lay hands on a sick person, but that’s okay, because Benny Hinn can’t heal anyone and neither can you. It’s the same Jesus doing it either way. If you wait until you feel like you can lay hands on the sick, you might wait the rest of your life!  Instead, just act on the Word, “They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” Do the Word even if you don’t “feel” like it’s going to work.  Your feelings aren’t going to heal anyone or stop anyone from getting healed. God will honor your boldness when you step out and believe Him.

The person of faith lets his actions be decided by God’s Word, not his feelings.

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