Faith is an Act of the Will

John 20:24-25

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the LORD. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

In the above passage, Thomas said, “I will not believe.” He made a choice and decision. Unbelief is an act of the will. Similarly, believing is an act of the will. The woman with the issue of blood exercised her will to get her miracle. She could have allowed what she had gone through to hinder her from her miracle. I tell people, life is individualistic. Each person will determine his or her outcome in life by what he or she is doing or not doing.

The Thomas’ kind of faith doesn’t produce any result. What is the characteristic of this kind of faith? It is based on ‘what I can see and what I can feel’ and that’s where the devil defeats many people. He uses symptoms and circumstances to convince people that the promise of God is not coming to pass. Meanwhile, God puts His blessing on the kind of faith that doesn’t depend on the visible physical evidence before believing His promises.

Make the choice to live by faith and believe, to live by the evidences of things not seen and not by the senses. We live in a world where we grow up living by sight and what people say is naturally built in us. To live by faith, you must make a choice and support that choice every day. Look at blind Bartimaeus, he also made a choice to believe, especially when people around him had chosen to doubt God. If somebody around you is not ashamed to doubt, why should you be ashamed to believe?

What you choose to believe will bail you out somewhere. Abraham became the friend of God when he made the choice to believe God out of the blues. It is a choice you can make that you will believe what God has said. Once you make that choice, it doesn’t matter the mistakes you have made or the experiences you have had. Sara laughed at God’s promises at a time but she decided to judge God faithful at one point. Mary said ‘Be it unto me according to your word.’ She could have said ‘Get out of my sight’. We are not believing a pastor, but we are believing the Word of God; the Bible. It is a personal choice. Nobody can do it for another person.

Faith is an act of the will. Choose to believe God, to live by faith and not by fear. Never conclude on a matter until you have heard what God has said. Make that decision once and for all, support it with actions every day and never go back again. The brain and expertise of man can limit you, make a decision that you will believe God. If you will take a tablet for example, put your faith in God and use the tablet. It is not faith ‘or’, it is faith ‘and’.

Faith in God is not denying the existing fact; it is changing the existing fact with the greater fact of the truth of the word of God.