BELIEVE FIRST AND YOU WILL SEE

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

joaniemarie

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2017
3,198
303
83
#1
[TABLE="width: 650"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 100%, align: center"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]…as you have believed, so let it be done for you…[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Matthew 8:13[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD][h=2]- MAY 15 -
BELIEVE FIRST AND YOU WILL SEE[HR][/HR][/h][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


You may have heard some people say, “How can I believe it when I don’t see it? If I can only see it or feel it, I may just believe that something is happening!”



The woman with the issue of blood who came to Jesus could have felt the same way. For 12 long years, she had gone from one doctor to another, trying every conceivable cure they could offer. She not only grew worse, but ended up losing all her money to those doctors and their “cures”.



Then, something happened to her when “she heard about Jesus”. (Mark 5:27) She started believing that He could and would heal her to the extent that she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” (Mark 5:28) Acting on her belief, she made her way to Jesus and touched His garment. Immediately, her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was healed of that affliction. Jesus, her true physician, also pronounced her healed.



Beloved, God wants you to know that when you believe Him, you will see your miracle. What you believe Him for, you will receive.When a church member lost her wallet at a swimming pool, she prayed together with her husband, declaring their belief that God would restore the loss. One day later, not at the swimming pool but at her feet in the car, she found her wallet! She simply believed that God would restore her loss and she saw the restoration.



In another case, a lady who had skin cancer wore long sleeves all the time to conceal her condition from others. During one of our church camps, she went forward for prayer, believing God for her healing. After one of our pastors, Pastor Henry, prayed for her, she went back to her room, rolled up her sleeves and saw that all the cancerous scarring on her arms had disappeared! Her doctor later confirmed that she had been cured of skin cancer. She believed God for healing and saw it.



The world says, “Unless I can see it or feel it, I will not believe it.” But God says, “If you will believe it, you will feel it. Indeed, if you will believe it, you will see it!”

 
R

Ralph-

Guest
#2
Joanie, before all the naysayers get here I want to remind every one of them that this is exactly how they received their salvation. They did not see Jesus, they did not see the cross, they believed in what they could not see, then they received it, then they could see it.
 

joaniemarie

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2017
3,198
303
83
#3
The idea that this woman with the issue of blood went through this problem continually for 12 years very much speaks to me. When situations in life go on for that long., it becomes a daily part of someone's personal thoughts about their life and being.

I think we even begin to identify ourselves by the situations we go through unfortunatly.

I can relate how impossible it seems (humanly speaking) that something that has become that much of a reality in a person's daily life could go away by believing that Jesus can perform a miracle today. Or tomorrow or even this week or this month or this year for that matter.


But I've come to see that is exactly what it takes. Being persistent in the believing Jesus will perform it. Often times it's very hard to think this way because we want to escape the thoughts of the problem by many different diversions. That probably comes in different forms depending on the person.


Some people become workaholics., or alcoholics., or tv aholics., or food aholics.... (insert what aholic applies) I've observed that those who become glued to the Word not allowing it to be stolen from them have seen daily miracles happen. I've begun to join those people and it's amazing how there will be diversions to stop this persistence in the Word of God from happening.


The enemy will always seek to stop Christians from persisting in the Word so that the seed can't take ROOT in us. The enemy doesn't want our focus off of ourselves and onto Jesus. So he is always there to steal the seed. Matt. 13:19-23

[SUP]
19 [/SUP][SUP][a][/SUP]While anyone is hearing the Word of the kingdom and does not grasp and comprehend it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the roadside.
[SUP]

20 [/SUP]As for what was sown on thin (rocky) soil, this is he who hears the Word and at once welcomes and accepts it with joy;
[SUP]

21 [/SUP]Yet it has no real root in him, but is temporary (inconstant, [SUP][b][/SUP]lasts but a little while); and when affliction or trouble or persecution comes on account of the Word, at once he is caused to stumble [he is repelled and [SUP][c][/SUP]begins to distrust and desert Him Whom he ought to trust and obey] and he falls away.
[SUP]

22 [/SUP]As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit.
[SUP]

23 [/SUP]As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the Word and grasps and comprehends it; he indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundred times as much as was sown, in another sixty times as much, and in another thirty.





Habits are formed and a sense of security is found in the habits formed IMO. Security is what we seek and without the knowledge of the truth., I've observed humans look for love and security in all the wrong places. What we think will bring help and satisfaction only brings a quick temporary relief.

Meanwhile that temporary relief becomes a habit that controls the one who formed the habit. It's the way human beings tick. i
I've also discovered it takes a bondage breaker. And from what I have learned., that bondage breaker is Jesus and the promises He died to give us we find in the Bible. Yet it takes focusing on the Word of God and the ministry of the Holy Spirit producing the fruit

Gal.5
[SUP]

22 [/SUP]But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness,
[SUP]

23 [/SUP]Gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [[SUP][a][/SUP]that can bring a charge].
[SUP]

24 [/SUP]And those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and appetites and desires.
[SUP]

25 [/SUP]If we live by the [Holy] Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. [If by the Holy Spirit [SUP][b][/SUP]we have our life in God, let us go forward [SUP][c][/SUP]walking in line, our conduct controlled by the Spirit.]


Miracles happen every day when a Christian believes. But often times I've seen how the enemy will circumvent that from happening by using anything to stop the believer from accessing the Word of God and the truth to be set free.
 

joaniemarie

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2017
3,198
303
83
#4
Joanie, before all the naysayers get here I want to remind every one of them that this is exactly how they received their salvation. They did not see Jesus, they did not see the cross, they believed in what they could not see, then they received it, then they could see it.

I agree. We recieve everything from God the exact same way we first believed. All things come from Jesus. We couldn't "see" Jesus on the cross but we believed He died for us personally when we accepted Him as Savior. How much more all these other things He has for us that come by that same kind of faith that is to be being worked out in us.

"Work out your own salvation" meaning work OUT what Jesus has already worked IN us.
 

DustyRhodes

Senior Member
Dec 30, 2016
2,117
599
113
#5
That reminds me of Thomas when he said to Jesus upon touching His wounds...
My Lord and my God...my most precious 5 words in scripture.

Jesus replied...Thomas you believe because you have seen but blessed are
those who have not seen but yet believe... thanks for this thread.
 

joaniemarie

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2017
3,198
303
83
#6
That reminds me of Thomas when he said to Jesus upon touching His wounds...
My Lord and my God...my most precious 5 words in scripture.

Jesus replied...Thomas you believe because you have seen but blessed are
those who have not seen but yet believe... thanks for this thread.

Amen., And everything changed for Thomas and the rest of those guys that day. There's another thread talking about whether God is restricted by time. The ideas people have shared in their posts about how great and powerful God is can overwhelm my brain.


But even our minds and thoughts and words can't fully comprehend the possibilities of who God is and what He will and can do. Our ideas about His love and power and grace can only scratch the surface.


IMO the only limitations about God working in our daily lives are put on by us. And the reason it's so helpful and edifying for believers to discuss His endless power is because it frees us for a time to just see Him without our own very limiting specifications coloring the glass sort of speak.


Thomas was stuck in natural thinking until Jesus opened his eyes. My daily prayer these days is that Christ will be revealed today as He is and not limited in my life by my own natural thinking. The possibilities are endless then for what He will do because of Jesus and in Jesus name.


Psalm 40:5
[SUP]5 [/SUP]Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.
 

Zmouth

Senior Member
Nov 21, 2012
3,391
134
63
#7
Joanie, before all the naysayers get here I want to remind every one of them that this is exactly how they received their salvation. They did not see Jesus, they did not see the cross, they believed in what they could not see, then they received it, then they could see it.
So it is not by grace one is saved but by the flesh?

It is written Jesus told Thomas that a spirit has not flesh and bone like Thomas was seeing him.

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. Luke 24:39

Of course, in that passage of Luke, it is written that he was speaking to the other disciples who were frighten that they had were seeing a spirit.
 
R

Ralph-

Guest
#9
So it is not by grace one is saved but by the flesh?

It is written Jesus told Thomas that a spirit has not flesh and bone like Thomas was seeing him.

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. Luke 24:39

Of course, in that passage of Luke, it is written that he was speaking to the other disciples who were frighten that they had were seeing a spirit.
I'm guessing you did not mean for this to be a response to my post but rather DustyRhodes' post?
 

Zmouth

Senior Member
Nov 21, 2012
3,391
134
63
#10
I'm guessing you did not mean for this to be a response to my post but rather DustyRhodes' post?
Actually, it was illustrating what you had said about how one received salvation by believing without seeing since you were reminding everyone of how they were saved exactly, but if you're guessing that I didn't mean it to be a response to your post, then that is a good enough answer for me to my question on whether you believe all things are possible..
 

lastofall

Senior Member
Aug 26, 2014
609
38
28
#11
"Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:8-9)
 

joaniemarie

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2017
3,198
303
83
#12
"Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:8-9)
Amen! So many verses about faith and how real it is. How without "faith" it is impossible to please God.

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, [SUP][a][/SUP]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].


"
 

Lewiz

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2018
346
22
18
#13
Seeing isn't it at all.

We must HEAR to believe.

Galatians 3:1-5 (KJV)

[SUP]1 [/SUP] O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? [SUP]2 [/SUP] This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? [SUP]3 [/SUP] Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? [SUP]4 [/SUP] Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. [SUP]5 [/SUP] He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Romans 10:14-17 (KJV)
[SUP]14 [/SUP] How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? [SUP]15 [/SUP] And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! [SUP]16 [/SUP] But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? [SUP]17 [/SUP] So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
 

wolfwint

Senior Member
Feb 15, 2014
3,589
873
113
61
#14
Joanie, before all the naysayers get here I want to remind every one of them that this is exactly how they received their salvation. They did not see Jesus, they did not see the cross, they believed in what they could not see, then they received it, then they could see it.
Yes, I agree with you. But this concerns to promisses which God gave in his Word.
So for our Salvation f.e. But if you use this for that everybody get physical healed f.e this will not match.Because this is not a generell promisse for all. In deed it can be an individuell leading for someone to get healed ore for a call to a ministrie.
 

joaniemarie

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2017
3,198
303
83
#15
Yes, I agree with you. But this concerns to promisses which God gave in his Word.
So for our Salvation f.e. But if you use this for that everybody get physical healed f.e this will not match.Because this is not a generell promisse for all. In deed it can be an individuell leading for someone to get healed ore for a call to a ministrie.

I believe that has to do with who is asking. If you are someone who asks and don't believe it's a promise in His Word made from Jesus to you., than no., I don't believe your prayers will be answered for healing because we are called to learn to ask IN faith believing.

I didn't always believe this way. I learned to believe this way. And now I believe He will do what He says He will do and that it is His will to heal. As well as a whole ton of other promises I'm still learning about. Amen Thank You Jesus!

If you don't believe that than I have no beef with you or anyone who doesn't believe this.
 

OneFaith

Senior Member
Sep 5, 2016
2,270
369
83
#16
Let's not forget it will only be done if it is in accordance to God's Will.
 
Mar 28, 2016
15,954
1,528
113
#18
Originally Posted by DustyRhodes
That reminds me of Thomas when he said to Jesus upon touching His wounds...
My Lord and my God...my most precious 5 words in scripture.

Jesus replied...Thomas you believe because you have seen but blessed are
those who have not seen but yet believe... thanks for this thread.

Interestingly we do see the
eternal not seen by using the temporal seen. Thomas had it up side as if the kingdom did come by observation. Christ as an example called him faithless (no faith).

In the parable of t
he woman who had a bleeding issue she was healed by the faith of Christ not of her own self that worked in her as a new revelation this when God was still adding to the book of prophecy it moved her to touch Christ.

God is no longer brining new revelations. Those kind
healings were temporally used to represent the gospel for that time period in establishing a new restored government.
 

joaniemarie

Senior Member
Jan 4, 2017
3,198
303
83
#19
The Bible is continually bringing new truths to me that I'd never heard before. I see today many more promises today than I did even just 5 yrs. ago. The words "new revelations" I take to mean there is nothing outside of God's Word that we are promised. That I agree with.

But our understanding of the Bible grows as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. As for healing and speaking in tongues., words of knowledge and revelation and the other works of the Holy Spirit that were going on in the early church? I believe they are most certainly for the church today.

Many churches don't believe this that is true., but many do believe. I think it has to do with the individuals who believe or don't believe what the Bible says about these issues. I happen to be a Christian who does believe the gifts in the early church have not ceased. But that was no always the case.
 
R

Ralph-

Guest
#20
The Bible is continually bringing new truths to me that I'd never heard before. I see today many more promises today than I did even just 5 yrs. ago. The words "new revelations" I take to mean there is nothing outside of God's Word that we are promised. That I agree with.

But our understanding of the Bible grows as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. As for healing and speaking in tongues., words of knowledge and revelation and the other works of the Holy Spirit that were going on in the early church? I believe they are most certainly for the church today.

Many churches don't believe this that is true., but many do believe. I think it has to do with the individuals who believe or don't believe what the Bible says about these issues. I happen to be a Christian who does believe the gifts in the early church have not ceased. But that was no always the case.
It's funny how we wake up with cancer one day, or have no money to pay the rent and we suddenly start believing in the gifts of the Spirit.

That's okay. I'm not condemning anybody. God often brings us to utter helplessness and despair to show his miraculous power among us. That seems to be God's modus operandi.......put you between the devil and the deep blue sea, and 'walla', the miracle happens. And he gets all the praise.......and you suddenly want to live for him more.