And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
Romans 4:19-21, NKJV
Not long ago, our youngest son, Joel, suddenly came down with startling symptoms that left him covered by an unexplainable rash, a terrible fever, chills, and the inability to walk without extreme pain. Jenny took him to the pediatrician, who said he had only seen this particular combination of symptoms a couple times over his very long and accomplished career. Within a few days, Joel was hospitalized in town and his labs were taken over and over again. Nobody could nail down exactly what it was that was afflicting him. After three days in the hospital and many labs for common diseases or infections came back negative, we brought him home. After a couple days, the symptoms showed back up with a vengeance, much worse even than before! This all took place during my first week of the fall semester of my master’s program, so I was scrambling to not get behind from the get-go, along with supporting and helping my family through many surprise sleepless nights. To say this was an extremely trying season was not an overstatement at all.
Because of his unique condition, he was sent to the nearest advanced children’s hospital in the region, about a 2.5 hour drive from our house. Jenny took him down immediately, and Caleb and I went down the following day. All in all, our family stayed at this hospital for another five days until Joel fully recovered from the rare disease process the doctors supposed he had contracted.
During this time, as you may imagine, Jenny and I prayed quite a bit and clung tightly to God’s Word. However, one thing that marked the entire event was a supernatural confidence, peace, and strong assurance that Joel would soon be fully back to normal. This strong confidence was not hopeful optimism, but was borne out of a place of faith that my wife and I had tried and proven over many years of standing on God’s Word in the face of circumstances that opposed what we believed. We were operating in true joy in the midst of seemingly unchanging circumstances.
There is no power in denying the facts. I never once said anything like, “Joel is not sick. He is healed. Can’t you see that he is healed? Jesus healed him 2000 years ago; so he simply is not sick right now.” The truth is, Joel was sick. He was hurting, and his body was undergoing an attack. We were fully aware of and sensitive to the physical situation. However, it is true that Jesus did, in fact, take Joel’s sickness upon His body 2000 years ago. And we understood that Joel’s healing was a done deal in the mind of God, and that the role of activating and receiving by faith the healing provided by God’s grace fell upon us. For a more detailed teaching on this concept of how grace and faith work together, check out this teaching.
But what you speak and what you allow yourself to meditate on is vitally important. What you speak reveals what is truly in your heart, and the heart is where your true stance of faith is revealed. You can convince yourself of what you think you believe, but in the middle of a ‘pressure-cooker event’ you’ll find out pretty quick what you really believe in your heart by what words come flying out of your mouth.
During this challenging season, Jenny and I were careful with what we allowed ourselves to speak over our youngest son. We spoke and confirmed the Word over him, not the diagnosis. We spoke life over him, not death. We knew that there were promises God had made over Joel to us personally that had not come to pass yet, so we knew he would be healed, simple as that. Instead of allowing the circumstances were were inundated with to swallow us up and completely overwhelm our thoughts, we simply decided to align our words and beliefs with God’s Word. There is great power in aligning your words and the meditation of your heart with God’s words and God’s heart, and this is especially important in the heat of a battle or intense situation! This is the way of strong faith.
The Holy Spirit provides a wonderful lesson on how to operate in strong faith (did you know there is such a thing as strong and weak faith?) in the story of Abraham as recorded in Romans 4:19-21. In the case of Joel’s surprise physical sickness, some of the truths I am about to share with you, I believe, literally saved his life.
When I study the Word and something really stands out to me, I study it out in the original language using software such as Blue Letter Bible (my favorite). Once I have studied, written down and defined, and mentally chewed (or meditated) carefully on each word, I usually try and synthesize the passage(s) with my own paraphrase based on my word study and understanding of the context, original language, and culture. After several days of studying Romans 4:19-21, I developed the following carefully curated paraphrase (some might call it a dynamic equivalent interpretive version). Instead of sharing every single Greek word study for each word in this passage, I’ll just share the (final) interpretive version with you here:
So Abraham, not operating in feeble, powerless, low-level faith, took a decisive stance to not spend his time and energy fixating, studying, and carefully considering the physical facts that blatantly confronted God’s Word to him. Instead, he made sure to not overthink the situation or wrongly fixate on seemingly unchanging circumstances. He yielded his own opinion on the matter and embraced God’s view. He didn’t allow unbelief into his heart, not even for a moment. Rather, Abraham was therefore strengthened with supernatural might and power, operating in a mighty faith—continually giving glory to God and not the situation he faced. As a result of these actions, he was completely filled up to the brim with total conviction with no room for doubting—he wore this conviction as one dressed in shining armor—fully knowing that what God had spoken to him, He fully had the power and the ability to bring forth (and to create, if need be) the promised possession.
Romans 4:19-21 (Justin’s interpretive version)
Now, I am not saying this interpretation is perfect, nor will educated Greek scholars likely agree with everything in here. But this is how I study the Word and extract everything I believe God is speaking to me. I want you to notice, though, how Abraham exercised what the Bible calls strong faith:
- Abraham took a decisive stance to not give the physical facts, although true and very real, the bulk of his attention.
- Abraham instead yielded whatever thoughts his natural mind had on the matter and didn’t overthink the situation, no matter how impossible they seemed.
- He decided to give glory to God and not the situation he was facing. This means he was more focused on God than the physical circumstances.
The Bible says that because of Abraham’s strong stance, he was clothed with a total and complete conviction–the Greek literally carries the idea of one wearing this conviction like armor–that acted as a shield and a covering for him that would outlast any attack of the enemy. He was fully convinced that God would make the promise come to pass some way, even if it meant creating something brand new that had never been done before.
Wow! This is so powerful. There are so many amazing truths in here! But I want to encourage you to think about your own mindset when it comes to challenging circumstances. Why don’t you take a few minutes to ask yourself the following questions?
- Have you taken a decisive stance, before you face a battle, to purposely NOT focus your attention on the seemingly unchanging circumstances that challenge you? Or do you respond primarily to the circumstances?
- Would you say, based on this interpretation of Romans 4:19-21, that, when faced with a hard situation, you respond in strong or weak faith? You don’t have to tell anyone–but you might as well be honest with yourself and God!
These are the types of questions I confront myself with when I read Romans 4:19-21. I want to make sure my faith is strong and razor-sharp, ready and able to extinguish anything the enemy could ever try to attack me with. It’s not enough to know the Word with your brain; you must put it to practice in your life. I know that you want to operate in strong, not weak, faith!
I pray what I’ve shared today encourages you and empowers you, perhaps even freeing you from some wrong thinking and wrong teaching, considering the operation of strong faith in the midst of the most seemingly impossible circumstances. Remember, Abraham was facing something in his life that was, according to the natural world, 100% impossible. There was no way ON EARTH that he could have a child,, and notwithstanding, his wife was totally barren! But if you know the story, you know what happened. And the Bible says that when Abraham was operating in this strong faith, he became ‘fully convinced’ that God would come through and do what He said He would do.
My deepest prayer and desire for you is that you take God’s Word, apply it to your life, and allow His promises to rule and reshape your thinking. I believe that if you allow His Word to dominate your thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions, you will see your faith begin to work more powerfully and effectively than ever before.