EASY WAYS TO OVERCOME DOUBTS
1 PETER 5:8 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
Resist Doubt
Doubt is from the devil. You have to resist doubts and rebuke them. You have to get your mind on the answer – on God’s Word. In order to receive answers to your prayers, you must eradicate every image, suggestion, vision, dream, impression, feeling, and all thoughts that do not contribute to your faith and that do not affirm that you have what you have asked God for.
The word “eradicate” means to uproot or remove. Remember, Satan moves in the sense realm, in the natural realm, and he uses the tool of suggestion. Some people think that every kind of vision, dream, impression, or feeling they have is from God. But that is not true.
Reject Anything That Contradicts the Word
Satan can move in the supernatural realm, too, because he is a spirit being, as is God. You’ve got to be able to know whether a vision, dream, impression, or suggestion is from God or Satan. Those suggestions that do not line up with the Word are of the devil.
A minister friend of mine had a good church that he had built and had pastored for twenty-five years. He had built up a notable work. He was in his fifties, but he was going to have to quit his work because of a physical deficiency. This physical condition hindered him and kept him from doing his best. He was a Full Gospel minister but still didn’t know how to believe for his healing.
As this minister awoke one morning, he saw someone standing in his room in shining apparel, and he thought it was Jesus. This “someone” said, “It is not my will to heal you.” But this being could not have been Jesus because what the spirit being said contradicted the Word.
MATTHEW 8:17
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
HEBREWS 1:1,2
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days SPOKEN UNTO US BY HIS SON, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.
Jesus is God speaking to us. Jesus is the Word of God. He is the Word made flesh (John 1:1-5,14). If you want to see God at work, look at Jesus. Jesus was the will of God in action while Jesus was on the earth. The Bible says Jesus “. . . went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. ..” (Acts 10:38).
In other words, if Jesus appeared to you in a vision and said that it wasn’t His will to heal you, He would be making Himself out to be a liar. Could it be His will for you to have what He bore for you? No, of course not. Jesus bore your sicknesses and diseases so you wouldn’t have to bear them.
It was the devil who brought that vision to that minister, and that minister accepted it. God doesn’t propagate doubt and unbelief. Every image, suggestion, vision, dream, impression, feeling, and all thoughts that do not contribute to your believing that you have what you have asked for, should be completely cast down and eradicated. They should be replaced with God’s Word (2 Cor. 10:3-5).
God’s Word says that you have your answer if you based your petition on the Word and believed you received it when you prayed. When you believe you receive your answer before you see it manifested, you are appropriating God’s Word by faith. It’s that kind of faith that moves God! So many times people say that they feel like God heard them when they prayed. I know those people are in for a fall the minute they say that.
When I pray, I say I know God heard me. I say I believe I have my answer because the Word says I do, not because I feel anything (Mark 11:24). God’s Word is so whether I feel like it is or not. Faith’s confession creates reality. So stand your ground and refuse to be defeated.