Questions & Answers
by Editor(s)

The following question and answer, first published in the March-April, 1990 issue of The Intercessor, was taken from a letter to Norman Grubb by someone who had "taken aboard" the Total Truth and wanted to know more about how to operate by the "word of faith." This abbreviated exchange is as timely for us today as it was when first published.

Q: I went from miserable as a sinner to desperate as a Christian. I would like to have lost my mind. I wanted to know God so bad it was all I could think about. I lived my life, but there was no joy, no peace, no rest. Nobody I knew had the answer; I was so confused and such a mess. I told God finally, "I’m so tired of this just who am I, and where do I fit into your world?" Well, in the next day or two I was in the Christian bookstore and your book Who Am I? was staring me in the face. I knew this book held the answer. That’s how I got started reading and believing the truth about who I am.

I wonder if you could help me to better understand "speaking the word of faith." I guess it just seems too simple. At this point I find myself telling God I don’t know what to pray. I am mostly praising Him for the truth, but because of my past teachings to pray–asking and begging for every little thing–it is just hard.

Do I just speak the word of faith on the authority that it is really Christ in me speaking? If people do not know the truth about themselves–that they are not independent selves–should I pray for anything except that they would know this truth? And people who are unsaved–should I only pray that God will make them aware of their need? Or should I pray about all their awful circumstances?

I am truly thankful that I could write to you, and I appreciate your answers.

A: I am so glad you have written and shared your heart. Yes, the Holy Spirit has been most thankfully that faithful "Hound of Heaven" in following after you by making you so desperate. There is no other way. People don’t get saved until the "fear of God" inwardly grabs them and they are on that "sinner" level, desperate. Faith is only taking the next step to satisfying a need, and then as a start, you are brought in touch with Jesus as Saviour. You plop by faith into the inviting armchair, and you surely find it inwardly holds you, and you know the blessed comfort of Romans 5:1: "Justified by faith we have peace with God."

Then comes the great and final desperation for the complete answer to being who we are, which Paul called in his Galatians his travail–that born-again believers should now know "Christ formed in them." Thank God you had that spell of "second desperation" till you almost felt like some kind of spiritual suicide.

Yes, it still is as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "few there be that find it," simply because there is the total step of the "obedience of faith" that you must take, and thank God you have done so. When that true inner knowing is yours, you are not so concerned about the many who don’t know as you do, but you are absorbed in giving the "Total Truth" you now possess on every occasion given you. Let the Holy Spirit chips fall where folks are ready.

As to your question on the word of faith, it is simple enough but always takes the "leap of faith" against appearances, which is our great training and practicing and achieving ground on our earthly faith walk.

Why should I have to keep moaning and groaning and begging from the very One whom Paul said in Romans 8:32 "freely gives us all things"? We only waste our time doing that. Read in the Touching the Invisible booklet how to inwardly, or with others, settle in what appears to you what you would like and what could be God’s will. Then take the united plunge by a spoken word of faith that this is a done thing, given by the Giver. Then hold on "with faith and patience" (Heb. 6:12) and "inherit the promise."

Faith is the inner action of ourselves, our spirit selves, responding to what we see as best we can to be His next provision in His will for us and our concerns. Then speak it out, "confess with your mouth" (Rom. 10:9). Yes, for most folk, that one supreme prayer of faith hits the spot-that the Spirit will bring them to know first who they were as Satan-I, but now through Calvary, Christ-I. I shall always be glad to hear from you or with further searchings.