I actually believe most Christians have great faith, more than they think they have. So did Jesus when they came to him saying Lord increase our faith. They were going down the wrong road of how to even think about faith. He appealed to their way of thinking for a moment and said, "If you had faith (small as you say you have for you're claiming you need it increased) if you have even faith as a grain of mustard seed (something small) you would say to the mulberry tree or the mountain be thou removed and be cast into the sea and it would obey you. Lk 17:6/ Mk 11:23 Your problem he said isn't needing MORE faith but understanding how to release the faith you've got.
Jesus never spoke to anyone about "releasing the faith" they had.
You quoted John 5; on that occasion, Jesus didn't ask the man if he had faith. And the man didn't even answer his question "do you want to get well?"
How much faith did Jairus and his wife have, after Jesus said "she is sleeping" and they laughed at him? How much faith did his daughter have?
Again the measure isn't primarily important. Knowing how to release one's faith to receive is.
This sounds like a work - that if you can believe enough you can make God heal, or show him that you have done enough to earn your healing.
Keep in mind he did say it's the prayer of faith which get's results.
Sometimes people pray in faith and don't "get results".
Keep in mind that what we want might not be what God wants.
God might listen to a pleading cry outside of the prayer of faith but depends on how much light and revelation he's sought to give one.
How do you know what God might listen to?
If they keep rejecting there is a method to faith James said, NOT I but James let him not think that he'll receive anything from the Lord. Jm1:7
Which, with respect, is nonsense.
Jennifer Rees-Larcombe was someone who believed that if someone got ill they just had to rebuke the illness and it would go. When she became ill she found that that didn't happen. She got encephalitis, was in hospital, actually died and was resuscitated. When her pastor finally heard what was happening and went to pray and anoint her with oil, she improved slightly and the hallucinations she had been having disappeared. She was in a wheelchair for 8 years, went to every healing service possible, received many "words from the Lord" about what she should DO, but remained unhealed.
It was after she surrendered herself to God completely and vowed to love and serve him - in a chair or on her feet - that he spoke to her and said "I want to heal you". The way that happened was that a very new Christian, who believed she could do nothing for God, simply prayed and asked God to heal her.
All the prayers, striving, attending healing services etc did not "work" - God healed in his own way through someone who did not have much faith.
In my own case, I had M.E for 18 years. I went to healing services and sometimes met, well meaning, Christians who told me I should have more faith. Even on these forums I was told that if I did not believe, nothing would happen.
Yet God healed me.
I still don't believe what they were telling me I should believe; I believe that God will absolutely do what is right, what he desires and in his own time.
Joni Eareckson has never been healed physically.
David Watson was prayed for my many Christian leaders and still died from cancer.
So isn't God a merciful God? Yes he is but he does insist certain things be done a certain way.
HIS way; not ours.
We do all kinds of things to make sure we are worthy to get healing; we never can be.
Nope you say I can't say. Not your business to get into particulars about an individual case. You are however called to teach the body of Christ the principles he's laid out in the Bible about the subject.
He hasn't laid out any "principles" on the subject.
People were healed through Paul's ministry - yet Paul left a fellow disciple behind because he was ill, 2 Timothy 4:20, Epaphroditus was so sick he nearly died, Philippians 2:27, Paul himself only preached to the Galatians because he was sick, Galatians 4:13. He raised Eutychus from the dead; how many did he not raise? Peter raised Dorcas from the dead; why didn't he restore James and Stephen after they were martyred?
Jesus commended some people for the faith they showed; he did not even ask others if they had faith.
To teach that there is a certain method one has to follow to get healing, is to put God in a box, or treat him as some kind of divine vending machine.
Yes it takes courage to teach them for people gravitate to make critical statements that one is being unlovely but we must provide the full scope of what God says about it if we truly love each other.
In that case you have to accept that there were, have been and are, may Christians who have prayed in faith and been to, and even led, healing services who have not received the physical healing for which they prayed. I am certain they would have been blessed and strengthened by God, learnt much and become closer to him - but they were not, or have not been, physically healed.
In my experience, some Christians simply don't know what to say on occasions like this, or can't admit that their "formula" hasn't worked. So it's easier to blame the sufferer for not having "enough" faith, the right kind of faith, some secret, unconfessed sin or that, deep down, they don't want to be well.
