Can We Have Faith for the Outcome?

Me:

Hey Pastor—

I wanted to reach out and ask you about something you said in Sunday’s sermon. You said that the Proverbs were not promises, but rather probabilities. You said that we can know this because we have examples of people either following or not following the principles therein and receiving the opposite results.

The question I have is whether this is true. Using this logic, we could practically apply it to other verses in the Bible that would be considered promises—like healing or God’s presence (“I will never leave you or forsake you”). If I could find examples of when the sick didn’t get better, am I to assume that God’s promise of healing is not, in fact, a promise, but rather a probability? Wouldn’t the problem with such a worldview always subvert faith?

If God doesn’t always follow His laws or covenant promises, how can we call Him faithful or trustworthy? If He has higher knowledge or insight as to why the promise should not be fulfilled, then His ways seem arbitrary, and man cannot approach Him in faith.

I agree that we live in a fallen world and that the enemy is constantly trespassing against the law of God. I also acknowledge that Jesus has promised us sorrow and persecution. However, He has also promised that we would be more than conquerors and that everything works together for good. One promise cannot invalidate another promise. Meaning, the promise of suffering does not invalidate the promise of victory.

I think Galatians applies when it says that if we don’t grow weary in doing good, we will reap the harvest in due season. If we don’t give up on the harvest and leave the garden, we will obtain the promise. A promise delayed is not a promise denied. God is faithful. How many times have we left the garden because we assumed that it wasn’t God’s will to keep His promise or His Word? How many times have we abandoned our breakthrough or miracle because we believe that God’s Word works sometimes and doesn’t work other times—that man cannot know when these proverbs or promises will or will not be honored?

Our misunderstanding of God’s covenant subverts our faith and, if we’re honest, charges God with being unfaithful. We wouldn’t ever say He isn’t faithful, but our actions confirm our deeper-held beliefs.

We teach people to “just step out in faith.” What we usually mean by that is to take action contrary to our feelings and expectations, and maybe, just maybe, God will choose to intervene. This is Peter’s second step on the water that caused him to sink—the step he took when he looked at the wind and the waves and was overcome with logic and fear. Yet this step was not Peter’s step of faith. The true step of faith was when, in response to hearing the voice of Jesus calling him to “come,” and having confidence that Jesus was trustworthy and faithful, he stepped out of the boat in confidence. Faith comes by hearing.

If we can’t hear or read the Scriptures and have confidence that God is faithful—that no matter our circumstances or logic, His Word will always prevail—how can we have faith? With an eternal perspective, we live and move and have our being in confidence, knowing that if we have not yet obtained the promises of God, we eventually will. That’s why we can come boldly before the throne of grace and let our requests be made known, because we’ve heard Him speak—and faithful is He who has promised.

We live within a paradox. We believe that God is good. We teach that He is faithful, yet our experience does not always confirm what we call the truth. Then we have to come up with doctrines to explain to people how a good God can be so untrustworthy and so seemingly “bad” according to man’s own standards. We chalk it up to the sovereignty of God and that His ways are higher than ours. However, I think it could be more about misunderstanding and a lack of faith. Faith is what moves the hand of God.

Faith is emotionalized belief and full alignment with the Word of God. The Word of God is not a book. It is a man. He was the Word of God in the flesh. Meaning, He was the embodiment of the Word of God. He fully believed whatever the Father said. His emotions aligned with the confidence of the Word manifested and fulfilled.

I’m going to end here. I feel like I might not be communicating clearly, but I wanted to reach out to help process my personal questions that arose from the sermon.

Have a great day! Blessings!

Me:

Pastor—

Thank you for taking the time to draft a thoughtful reply. I wasn’t necessarily needing or expecting one. I do agree with much of what you’ve written below. At this point in my Christian walk, I personally am looking for reasons to believe—and trying to remove ways of thinking that subvert faith.

When you said something to the effect of how we can observe from experience that the wisdom of Proverbs does not always work out as expected—that we can see examples where the wicked do seem to be flourishing or when doing the right thing doesn’t always produce the intended outcomes—my mind quickly made the connection to other promises of God and how we could, and do, apply the same logic. Because we have seen people pray for the sick and seen them not recover, this too could be considered a probability rather than a promise.

I am standing on the promise of training up a child in the way they should go. I understand that my child has free will. I understand that I have no control over the end. But I also know that the New Covenant says to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved—and all of your household. The good seeds that have been sown in them will one day bear fruit. Jesus also said we can speak to the mountain, and it will be removed—that with faith, nothing shall be impossible.

I’ve grown up my whole life in church, and yet there have been things I have learned that now I could never imagine coming from the lips of Jesus in a sermon. For example, I learned that while salvation was a free gift, righteousness was earned or gained by my ability to keep the law after my conversion. This isn’t true. Righteousness is a free gift received at the new birth. I’ve lived most of my life in the end of Romans 7, dismissing Romans 6 and 8, where Paul clearly lays out our freedom from the law of sin and death. I’ve been told to have faith, but no one ever really explained to me what faith actually is.

In the church at large, many times we build our theology and doctrines around our experience rather than the Word of God. We observed that someone laid their hands on the sick and they didn’t get healed, so therefore we build a framework to explain why it didn’t happen. If we were honest, we could say that in the church, the probability of someone recovering from having hands laid on them is pretty low. Therefore, many believers never lay hands on the sick. Or if we do, we do so without faith.

If we want to really know what we have faith for, we need to look at our expectations when we pray. We pray in hope that God will heal, but we would be surprised if it actually happened because our expectation, based on experience and observation, is that it “probably” won’t happen. How many times do we temper the promises of God because we don’t want people to be discouraged if it doesn’t work out?

We temper the faith of a believing parent who is praying for a prodigal child just in case they never come to faith. We weigh the potential outcomes and decide it would be worse for them to believe and be disappointed rather than risk standing in faith.

We’ve told people to just “step out in faith” or just “take a step of faith.” What we mean by that is to take a step or to take action contrary to our logic, emotions, and expectations, hoping that God might show up and meet us there. This is not faith. This is Peter’s second step out of the boat—or his first step after he came to his senses. Yet true faith is when we fully trust the outcome because we fully trust the One who said, “Come.”

Faith displaces doubt. Fear and faith cannot both be embodied, for they are at enmity with one another. Fear subverts faith. It is all of the “what ifs?” What if the person doesn’t get better? What if my child never turns to Christ? What if the money doesn’t come through? It’s when we pray for someone to get better with the expectation that they probably won’t, so we go ahead and prepare for the worst. At the risk of sounding insensitive, this is not praying in faith. It is, at best, a desperate plea to a God we’re not sure we can trust.

Sure, we would never say we don’t trust Him, because we’ve built our doctrines and theology around the “what ifs”—around our disappointments. We’ve tried to explain how a good God doesn’t always appear to be good. We’ve had to reconcile that He is faithful even when we’ve experienced things that charge Him as being otherwise.

How would we have counseled the woman with the issue of blood? She had confidence in the outcome. She fully expected that if she could just touch the hem of His robe, she would be healed.

You said, “That doesn’t make God unfaithful. Nor does it mean faith is meaningless. It means that faith is ultimately confidence in God Himself… not confidence that we can always predict how or when He will act.” And I’m not so sure this is true.

Jesus taught His disciples to heal the sick and to cast out demons. They boldly declared, even after His ascension, to “stand up and walk.” They were trained in healing the sick. When the father brought his demonized son to the disciples, they were bewildered as to why they couldn’t deliver the boy. Why? Because He taught them that God was faithful and that if they followed Him, they could predict the outcome because they knew how the Father would respond.

Yet here was an example when it didn’t work. What was Jesus’s response? Did He say it wasn’t the will of the Father to heal? No, He rebuked the disciples for their unbelief. He says this kind of unbelief does not come out except by prayer and fasting. Jesus wonders if He will really find faith on the earth when He returns.

The only other examples we have in Scripture where Jesus says “no” are with Lazarus and the Gentile—sorry, maybe she was Samaritan—woman whose daughter was sick. With Lazarus, He actually didn’t say no, but He delayed. Mary and Martha prayed to Jesus to heal their brother, and He intentionally delayed. Why? Because He wanted to give them a better gift.

And with the woman’s daughter, He said it wasn’t right to give the children’s bread to the dogs. He said no—it’s not the right time. She persisted and got Him to change His mind. He marveled at her faith.

Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Be removed.” He didn’t say you shall plead and petition the Father. He didn’t say it’s highly probable that the mountain will move. He didn’t say if it aligns with God’s sovereign will. He said if you say to the mountain, “Move,” it will obey.

He said lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. He didn’t say there would be a higher chance of their recovery. He didn’t say if it was God’s timing. He didn’t say if they don’t have unforgiveness in their hearts. He says they shall recover. And the prayer of faith “will” heal the sick.

I’ve tempered that my whole life using the logic you described in differentiating the Proverbs from the promises of God. And yet, those Proverbs are based on the covenant that God made with Abraham! There are some pretty amazing covenant promises that He gave the children of Israel that we don’t even walk in today. Yet we’re supposed to have a better covenant based on better promises, and we don’t even partake of many of the blessings that the children of Israel did when they were entitled to do so through their obedience. Our covenant is based on Christ’s obedience.

The Bible says that the reason many believers are sick and died was because they had disregarded the body of Christ. I always thought that verse applied to the church—that they had disregarded the church body, and there may be some truth to that. However, I think the bigger issue is that they have disregarded His body given for their healing.

If we had the same amount of faith for the blood as we have for the body, many in the church wouldn’t even be saved—because the blood was given to remove our sin. The body was given for our healing.

Faith comes by hearing. Peter heard the word of Jesus saying to “come.” He knew the outcome was secured because he knew He who promised was faithful.

Faith is emotionalized belief. It is when our deeply held belief aligns with the Word of God, and that alignment produces in us the fruit of the Spirit. It is when we are fully convinced of the outcome because we have heard Him speak. It is when we expect the outcome because we know He is faithful, and that if He said it—even laying hands on the sick—it will happen.

It is when we believe so much that even our emotions respond to the truth. It is when we believe that because He said we can speak to the mountain, it has to move. Faith is not tempered with negative “what ifs.” It is reckless in that way, with no regard to logic or past experience. It is when we take His Word for granted and are fully convinced.

If it doesn’t happen, if my prayer isn’t answered, I don’t blame God. I see it as an invitation to know Him more deeply. There is room to grow in my understanding and faith, but His Word is eternal and unchanging.

Even in the charge that the reason many are sick, we can respond two ways: 1. Accepting our sickness because of our sin of disregarding the body; or 2. As an invitation to repent, no longer disregard His body, and be healed.

I remember the Holy Spirit gently rebuking me one time after praying for the sick and my determination that nothing happened. He said, “At the very least, can you not expect Me to be good every time you pray?”

The honest answer for me at that time was “no,” because I couldn’t understand why He would say “lay hands on the sick” and then they wouldn’t recover. We don’t believe God is good. We even play songs on Christian radio about what if God’s blessings really look like pain and suffering and disappointment.

Sorry it took so long to respond. We don’t have to keep going back and forth here, as sometimes it’s more difficult to interpret heart intent in print. I’ve often said that I learn more from sermons or statements that I disagree with than ones I do agree with because it forces me to go to the Scriptures and to prayer to see what the Father is saying.

I don’t think you believe that God is unfaithful. I don’t think anyone would really say that out loud. I just know that deep down, my subconscious beliefs have charged God with unfaithfulness many times—through my actions and through my expectations.

I appreciate the dialogue and thoughtful response. It shows that you really do care. I pray that we would both continue to grow in revelation of who He is.

Blessings!

Me:

Pastor—

I know I said we didn’t have to keep going back and forth, but this morning I’m feeling prompted by the Holy Spirit to respond. I appreciate and enjoy dialogues like these because they are thought-provoking and really help me solidify my own faith and test what I believe against Scripture and others who are equally pursuing the Lord.

You said, “Where I would probably frame things a bit differently is that I don’t believe faith is confidence in a particular outcome as much as confidence in a faithful Person.”

This would’ve been my theological position for most of my life, but lately I believe the Holy Spirit has been challenging me on this very mindset. I’ve lived most of my life with this as my understanding of faith. Maybe my interpretation is a bit different, but my outlook in prayer is that I could never know the outcome, and that whatever it was, I had to trust that it was because God is sovereign, good, and faithful.

Now, however, as I’ve been dialoguing with the Holy Spirit the past two months, I am increasingly convinced that THIS IS NOT FAITH. True faith is for the outcome because we have heard Him speak and we are confident in the outcome. And the more I have leaned into this, the more I have inherited the outcome and received the answers to my prayers.

Could we imagine Jesus sitting the disciples down and instructing them in this kind of thinking? Would Jesus say, “I want you to lay hands on the sick. When you do, you’ll never know the outcome. Sometimes, if it is in God’s sovereign will, you will see the sick recover, but don’t always expect it.”

Would Jesus say that? Or would that sound strange coming from Him? Or did He simply say, “You shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover,” with no qualifications?

Would the first sermon instill “faith” in the disciples to declare boldly, “Rise up and walk”? Weren’t they confident of the outcome?

Matthew 21:21—Jesus seems to be saying that if we have faith and do not doubt, we can be confident in the outcome.

And I’d like to challenge you a bit here, as I have been challenged recently. You said, “and pray for mountains to move,” but in this passage Jesus never instructed us to “pray” for the mountains to move. He instructed us to speak to the mountain, and it would obey.

How many mountains in my life have I prayed for the Father to move that were never cast into the sea? The majority. But how many mountains in my life have I actually spoken to and commanded to move? Very few.

I’ve petitioned and pleaded with God to move the mountain without confidence in the outcome, without ever speaking to the mountain.

Wouldn’t this type of prayer make me the man from James 1:8? Double-minded? Constantly swinging between faith and fear/doubt?

Is faith the substance of “things” hoped for and the evidence of “things” not seen? Or is it merely confidence in a sovereign God to do what’s right without the ability to know, understand, or comprehend what that might be in any given situation?

It is faith for “things”—for and in the outcome.

The woman with the issue of blood had confidence in the outcome because she knew He was faithful.

The Canaanite woman whose daughter was delivered had confidence in the outcome because she knew He was faithful.

The Roman centurion had confidence in the outcome if Jesus would just speak the word.

Over and over in Scripture, we see examples of men and women of great faith doing impossible things because they had confidence in the outcome because of their relationship with the Father. They heard Him speak, so they knew it was going to happen.

I don’t think we can separate the Giver from the gifts like we so often teach. Yes, we don’t pursue the gifts, but when we walk with the Giver, we can be confident that He gives gifts. It’s in His nature to do so. He’s promised to do so.

Jesus gave us authority over all the power of the enemy. He told us to heal the sick, raise the dead, make disciples, and cast out demons. We would say we could only do one of those things, and the rest would be up to God to perform, but that’s not the way Jesus phrased it. He told us to do it.

We can’t do those things in faith without being confident in the outcome. And we can be confident because we heard Him say to do it! Faith comes by hearing.

I wonder if it is this very misunderstanding of faith that has kept the church relatively powerless today when compared to the early church?

This conversation may have been more of a sounding board for me to flesh out what the Holy Spirit has been doing in me the past few months than anything else, but either way, I appreciate the back and forth and continue to pray that the Lord will give us both revelation concerning these deeper things!

Blessings!