Is Your Faith Crippled?

A few nights ago the Lord interrupted me during a dream. I was asleep, dreaming about something random, when suddenly the voice of the Lord spoke to me.

In my dream His voice suddenly rang out and He said, "Those who don't take My Word seriously, will never receive the fullness of what I have to offer. Believers who read My word and see the words, "I am the Lord who heals you," but don't believe I am willing to heal them, will never see me as The Healer. Believers who read the words, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you," but they don't see me as their Counselor, as their Instructor, that I love them; will never experience the fullness of My Counsel, My Love, My Instruction.

Believers who read the words, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest," but don't come to Me with their burdens, casting their cares at My Feet, will never know the rest I provide.

Believers who read, "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future," but don't trust Me for their future, don't believe I desire good and WANT to prosper them, will never see My prosperity. These believers will never know the wonderful future I have in store for them, because they could not let go of it and trust Me to provide it for them.

Believers who read, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God," but do not give Me their anxiety, and pray to Me regarding every anxious situation, give Me every anxious thought and thank Me, will never have My Perfect Peace reign in their lives.

Believers who read the words, "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still," but never let Me fight their battles and insist on fighting them themselves, will never see Me as their Warrior.

Believers who read, "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus," but don't believe that I WILL supply EVERY need of theirs, and trust Me to give them what they need according to MY riches, will never see all that I can give them. They will live in constant lack.

I was hearing the Lord speak to me, and then suddenly He woke me up. As I meditated on these words that He had spoken to me in my dream, suddenly He gave me a vision.

In my vision the Lord showed me believers in the race of the faith. And as I looked at believers everywhere, all over the world, in different places of the race of faith, suddenly He showed me their feet. These believers were all missing toes.

And He said to me, "notice that every believer has their big toe. The big toe is their faith for salvation. When they accepted Me as their Savior, their soul was redeemed from death unto life, and their big toe represents the gift of salvation they have received from Me."

But as I looked at these believers, I noticed they were missing other toes. Some were missing one or two toes, some were missing every single toe except for their big toe. And then the voice of the Lord impressed on me again and He said, "every time a believer reads a promise in My Word but refuses to believe it for themselves, or puts more trust in their lack of faith to believe for their promise and less trust in Me as their God who provides miracles and promises, they hinder their ability to run effectively. They are missing those toes. For every promise that a believer reads in their Bible but is not willing to trust Me to give them that promise, they will miss that toe until they choose to see Me as their provider in that area."

And as I looked at believers everywhere, I noticed that most of them were crippled in some way. Many believers all over the world were missing toes. And because they were missing toes, they couldn't run well in the race of faith. They hobbled along, not effectively sharing the true saving grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The proper meaning of the name Yahweh, is " He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists. " In the realm of heaven, your healing exists. God's Word says, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." Jesus bought your healing. (Isaiah 53:5)

In the realm of heaven, your prosperity exists. Because God's Word says, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9)

In the realm of heaven all of your needs are met, and there is provision for every single thing that you lack here on earth. The key is belief.  Faith unlocks your heavenly provision here on earth. Whatever you are missing, whatever you lack, believe the Lord for it and you will see it.

Is there something that you lack? When you look at your life, are you struggling to believe the Lord for something?  Whatever that thing is, there are a few key principles to follow in order to grow your faith and receive your miracle.

The first thing we must do as believers who are missing toes is to identify what it is we're struggling to believe God for. When I come to the Lord with an area of need, or an area in which I lack the faith to believe that He is good and wants good for me, I come into His presence and confess my lack before His throne. I don't hide  it, I don't pretend that I have faith that doesn't exist, instead I am completely honest with my Father. I lay my heart and my need bare, and then I surrender it to Him. I cast my cares, worries, anxieties and lack unto Him because He cares for me and I know that.

There is no one who can take better care of you than Jesus, our Lord and King. So give Him everything that you care about. And the key here is to cast it over and over and over unto Jesus. Cast it as often as you need to, until one day you leave that care at His Feet and stop picking it up.

We need to counter the lies with the truth. Whatever you struggle to believe God for, be it health, provision, a future, a career, whatever your need- find those verses in the Bible that tell the truth about your need. Write them down. Write as many down as you need to.

If you are weak, find verses about God being your Strength. If you are sick, or your body isn't functioning optimally, find verses about God as your Healer. If you need a miracle, find a verse that speaks to the Lord making all impossible things possible.

This part is important. We have to feed our faith in order for it to grow. And the food in which we use to feed faith, to feed our belief, is the truth written in God's Word.  Jesus Himself countered Satan's lies in the desert with the Truth written in His Word.  If we don't learn to counter the devil's lies with God's Truth then we are literally coming into agreement with the lies and turning our back on what is right and holy.

We must bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and that means we have to turn over every thought in our mind and examine it. If it doesn't line up with God's word then it must be chucked out! And the way in which we remove lies is by retraining our minds with Bible verses that contain the truths we need to water our little mustard seedling of faith.

So open your Bible and find those verses. Meditate on them day and night, and your tiny bit of faith will grow into incredible belief that overtakes your unbelief and wavering heart of fear. Whatever you feed will become what you are. Feed your faith. Feed your belief. Chew on God's word and feed at His table.

Pray. All of my close friends know this about me: I write down my prayers on notecards and stick them in my Bible, in my journals, under my pillow, in areas of my house that I know I will see them daily and pray for them.

I have verses hanging on my plants, and when I water my plants I meditate on those verses. I have a prayer for the Lord's anointing on my life sitting with my makeup brushes. If you open up any one of my journals a good amount of notecards will fall out. I pray these prayers until the Lord answers them or changes my heart to pray something more specific or completely different.

Take your area of need and write down a prayer asking the Lord to fill you with the faith to believe for your miracle. Ask for the Lord to give you strength to retrain your mind, to fill your heart with faith, to guard your mind against lies, to fill you up with the faith of Jesus.

Prayer changes everything! Let it change your heart, your mind, your life. Let it fill you with the faith to believe for your miracle. Pray for your missing toe to grow.

Don't let the enemy come after you and discourage you into quitting. He will. We know he will. But don't let him steal your baby seed of faith.

It will take time for your faith to grow, it doesn't usually happen overnight. (Although I have heard of situations where it does!)

When you plant a seed into the ground it often takes weeks until you see it sprout, and a few months until you see the plant take shape. It's only after a few months, or even a few years, that the seed becomes a full tree that bears fruit.

When I was a kid we planted two apple trees in our yard. It took years for us to any fruit come from it, and the first few years that it produced apples we weren't that impressed with them. So we did research. We learned how to care for the trees better, how to spray them and keep bugs away from our apples. I was in my mid-teens when our trees produced a bumper crop one year, and we had apple everything for awhile. Apple pies, apple tarts, apple jams, frozen apples that were in our freezer for years.

My point is, don't be discouraged if it takes time to see any growth in your faith. Trust that you are doing what is right by feeding it with the word of God, and don't quit prematurely.

The enemy is going to steal your verses, so guard them close to your heart. If that doesn't work, he will send out the bugs to eat your fruit, be smarter than him. Find the spray that keeps you in line with the truth of God's word. Your spray might be worship music, or listening to sermons and podcasts on faith. Be in the word.

When I listen to sermons filled with words of faith my faith grows and I become like a warrior ready for battle. Sermons are my spray. Sermons get my blood pumping. Sermons prepare me for war.

Find your spray. It's going to be something unique to you. Whatever it is, figure it out and use it to nourish your faith and keep your tree from being eaten by the enemies lies and traps. It's your job to guard your heart, and to let God and His word grow your seedling of faith.

"Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." (3 John 1:2 NKJV)

John penned these words to Gaius who was praised for unselfishly providing to the cause of Christ. Gaius would often provide accommodations for the Lord's servants as they were traveling from city to city. He would feed them and give them a place to stay.

John wrote that he prayed Gaius would prosper in all things AND be in health. The word prosper here is the Greek word euodoo, which means to help on the road, succeed in reaching, to succeed in business affairs, to cause to prosper, be successful. There is only one word for prosper used in the entire New Testament, and it's this word.

***Now I want to interject something here: some translations completely omit the word prosper, which the Lord included in the original Greek text. I think this is important to remember, we can't let someone else's unbelief affect our ability to believe . I don't know why some translations omitted prosperity from this verse, but let's be a believing people who trust that what the Lord wrote then is true for us too. We can't let our parents, our past, or our friends dictate what we choose to believe about God's word and His promises. God desired Gaius to prosper, and He also desires us to prosper in all things AND be in health.

The Holy Spirit inspired text ensured that the Greek word for prosper meant a prosperous journey, to succeed in business, to be successful. This matters! It matters because we hear teachings that God doesn't want to prosper His people, and this is NOT true. It's not biblical. It's a lie Satan uses to trick believers into falling into poverty and despair.

Now what is true is that we can't love prosperity more than we love the Lord, that will lead to death and destruction. Nothing can come before our love for the Lord. If it does, it will become an idol in our heart, and a place in which we sell ourselves short for the kingdom. God must come first.

But biblical truth that we need to learn to believe is that God wants His people to prosper! He wants us to flourish! He wants our businesses to succeed so that we may be like Gaius, providing for God's people to go out into the world and spread the gospel. God wants us healthy so that we have the stamina and strength to share the good news. He wants us free from sickness and diseases because Jesus paid the price for our health!

And the Lord wants our souls to prosper. He wants us full of faith to believe for our miracles. He wants us to be filled up with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He wants us to flow in alignment with Him, so that we might go out preaching and healing and praying. He wants our souls to be well!

The Lord doesn't want us to be missing any toes. He doesn't want us lacking in any good thing. So whatever you might be missing, be sure that this year you make the choice to grow your faith in that area. If you lack the faith, then be like the father of the child who fell to his knees at Jesus' feet and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-25)

These words were written that we may know the example to follow when we also struggle with our belief. Ask the Lord Jesus to help you. Ask the Lord Jesus to give you His faith, His belief. Make the choice this year that it will be your year of faith, your year of believing for what you lack, your year of standing in faith and fighting the good fight until you see the goodness and promises of the Lord fall upon you.

Choose faith. Choose to believe.

How beautiful on the mountains

    are the feet of those who bring good news,

who proclaim peace,

    who bring good tidings,

    who proclaim salvation,

who say to Zion,

    “Your God reigns!”

-Isaiah 52:7

"You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?"

-Galatians 5:7 NLT

 With Joy, Jessica