SPIRITUAL DWARF VS SPIRITUAL GIANT

I remember the last church I pastored. There was a woman in our church who was facing major surgery. I knew, of course, that God's best for her and His perfect will for her was that she be healed by the power of God and not have to undergo the surgery. So I kept talking to her about healing, and I read God's Word to her, trying to raise her level of faith to where mine was and to where God wanted her to be.

But I saw over a period of time that I just wasn't making any headway. So one day I said to her, "Now I've done my best to get you to agree with me. You know the Bible says, 'If two of you on earth shall agree as touching anything they ask, it shall be done' [Matt. 18:19]. However, that also means if they don't agree, it won't be done."

You see, you're not going to get somebody healed when you believe they receive their healing, and they believe they don't receive it. There's no agreement there! A lot of times people have thought, If somebody else has enough faith, he can believe God, and I'll just get healed whether I believe or whether I don't. Well, then, why didn't Jesus go ahead and get everyone healed on His own faith in Nazareth! MARK 6:5 5 And he could there do no mighty work [it didn't say He wouldn't; it said He couldn't], save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

How come Jesus only got a few sick folk healed in Nazareth? Why didn't He just go ahead and believe God for all of them? Wasn't He a man of faith? Certainly He was. Let's read the next verse. MARK 6:6 6 And he marvelled BECAUSE OF THEIR UNBELIEF. ... If Jesus' faith couldn't override those people's unbelief, you needn't think you're going to do something Jesus couldn't do! You won't be able to get everyone healed on your faith either! So I endeavored to get this woman to the place of faith where she could receive her healing. But I saw I just wasn't making it. So I said to her, "Sister, I've tried to get you to come up on my level of faith where we could agree together, and I see I'm just not making it. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just come down on your level of faith.

"Now, then, what can you believe?" I asked her. "I'll just believe with you where you can believe." "Well," the woman responded, "I can believe that God will see me safely through this operation." Now don't misunderstand me. That wasn't God's best for this woman. But right on the other hand, if you need to be operated on, if you'll believe that God will see you safely through an operation, the Bible says, ". . . ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH be it unto you" (Matt. 9:29).

It's not that this woman just couldn't believe for her healing. She was a believer, so she could have believed. But she wouldn't and didn't believe she could receive the healing that actually belonged to her in Christ. She didn't believe she would not need to have the operation. I said to this woman, "I'll just agree with you then that God will see you safely through the operation." So I laid my hand on her head and said to her, "Now you listen to me pray, and see if you can agree with this prayer. And if we agree, it'll be done." And so I prayed: "Heavenly Father, I know You provided healing for us — for this sister — but she has not yet come to that level of faith to accept it. So I'll come down on her level of faith. You're not going to forsake her, Lord. She's Your child. I'll agree with her that You'll just guide the physician's hands and that You'll bring her safely through this operation. I agree that You'll cause her to respond so quickly, beyond what nature could do, so that even the doctors themselves will admit it's a miracle. In Jesus' Name, amen."

Then I said, "Do you agree with that?" "Yes," she said, "I agree with that." I said, "All right, we've found something we can agree on then." I think Christians ought to agree like that more often. We ought to find things we can agree on, instead of finding things we disagree on! (And if we do disagree, we ought to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.) Also, we ought to help people regardless of where they are in their faith walk. This woman couldn't agree on my level of faith, so I came down and agreed on her level of faith.
So the woman had the operation. I was at the hospital when she was operated on. They put her to sleep at about 7:30 in the morning and performed the operation. (those days operation was not like our modern operation) One of the doctors said to me, "We made a little longer incision than we would ordinarily make, because we wanted to do a little more exploratory surgery while we were performing the operation."

So by twelve o'clock noon, she was out from under the anesthesia, and she was fully conscious. That night at about eight o'clock, my wife and I were visiting the woman again when the doctor came in. A nurse was with him, and he had this woman's medical chart in his hands. He hadn't seen the woman since her operation early that morning. He said to her, "I see on the chart that you haven't had any medication for pain. Aren't you hurting?" "No," she answered. "Have you got any pain?" the doctor asked her. "No." "Aw," he said, "I know you're bound to be hurting after having your stomach cut wide open." "Well," she said, "I don't. I don't have one pain; I don't hurt at all." "Well," he said, "I'm going to mark on your chart for them to give you a shot anyway." They gave her one shot, and that's all they ever gave her. She never had another shot for pain.

About two or three days later, that same doctor said to me, "I've never seen anything like that in my life. We operate on people who come here from all over the United States. We perform three to ten of these operations every single day, and we've done that for years. "If some other doctor had told me that this woman experienced no pain after this kind of operation, I wouldn't have believed it. If I hadn't seen it myself with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. I've never seen anybody in my lifetime come through this kind of operation so quickly and do so well. It's nothing short of miraculous." We got what we believed for! It really wasn't the best that God had for this woman. But that was the measure she had grown to, so I just agreed with her.

And what we agreed on happened). Afterward, I saw that same woman begin to develop in faith after she had used her faith down on that lower level. And I saw her develop in faith until her faith grew to the point that if she ever faced the same kind of major surgery again, she would have been able to receive her healing instead. She wouldn't have had the operation. Actually, I would say she developed her faith until she outstripped everyone else in the church in the area of faith. Her faith was developed beyond all of them. Now just a couple of years before, it wasn't. But she started using her faith. I got this woman to begin using her faith where she was, and she saw that God worked a miracle in her life in that operation. It wasn't His best for her, but, after all, it was a miracle. She never did need a shot for pain after being cut wide open. She didn't even need the one they gave her! And that's what we agreed on — that she would come out of the operation miraculously.

So she began to see that faith does work. And she began to use her faith in other areas until within a two-year period, she developed in faith beyond any other member of the church. She developed her measure of the mountain-moving faith. But this woman could have taken the wrong attitude. She could have said, "Well, I couldn't believe God for healing. I tried it and it didn't work." And she could have just given up on the whole thing and never grown anymore spiritually. She would have still been a spiritual dwarf, or a spiritual baby, not able to help herself or anybody else. It makes all the difference in the world the attitude we take wherever we are in life. So keep a positive attitude, and keep the switch of faith turned on, praise God! Keep believing God and exercising your faith where you are in your faith walk. Your measure of faith can grow and move mountains! (Kenneth Hagin)