Why It's Not Working
by Victoria Thornton It’s God's will that you receive His best and not be satisfied with the enemy’s second best. When it comes to the promises of God there is too much doubt, too much unbelief and too much fear.
When God has given you something or when you read in the Word where God has given you a promise, like receiving a mate, --just because God has given it --does not mean it automatically will come to pass. Receiving the promises of God will not happen without your intervention; your conscious choice, decision and intention. Therefore in order to experience God’s best, your participation is required.
Once you understand that you must participate in receiving the Will of God for your life, the next point you must understand is you must have faith in the Word of God –whatever He has spoken to you in the Word [logos] or whatever He has spoken to you in your spirit [rhema].
Many are fooled into thinking they are exercising faith or operating in faith but they are not. Because they’ve seen or heard how faith ought to work they think they know what faith is. But they fail to understand the true essence of faith. They are what Romans 10:2 says, ‘they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge’. There are believers who are living like unbelievers. There are a lot of believers who have unbelief in their hearts and as a result, God cannot work in their lives. God cannot heal them, God cannot prosper them, and God cannot bring them the mate He has for them.
So to receive the promises of God, make sure your faith is working at the optimal level. And the way you do it is to get rid of all doubt and unbelief.
For your faith to work make sure you have completely eradicated all doubt and all unbelief from your heart. Doubt and unbelief will stop anyone anywhere from experiencing the works of God. Jesus could do no any mighty work because of their unbelief. The disciples could not cast out the demon because of their unbelief. The children of Israel could not enter into the promise land because of their unbelief. And if you harbor doubt and unbelief in your heart, you won’t be able to accomplish much either.
Even if you believe for a time; then get into doubt, you still will never see the manifestation of your faith. It’s not the believing part that is the problem; it’s the believing while entertaining doubt that is the problem. Because entertaining doubt will cancel everything God wants to do. But praise God, Jesus already has given us the solution.
Before we talk about the remedy let’s look at some symptoms.
One of the main symptoms of doubt is wavering. How much doubt does it take to cancel what you are believing for? All it takes is just a few seconds of doubt and you are back where you started. Many believers think it takes one huge, big doubt to cancel their faith. Or they think if they let doubt linger for days it would cancel their faith. Not at all, all it takes is just a few microseconds of doubt to destroy your faith-- and that’s it—you’ll have to begin again.
And it is for this reason why so many people are hardly making progress; why they are hardly moving forward, going back and forth; in and out of faith wondering why things are not working. This is the reason why you could be believing for your mate and years could pass without seeing anything change.
Another symptom of doubt is how you respond to a crisis. Ninety-five percent of Christians fall into doubt the moment they hit a difficulty. David said in Psalms 116:10, ‘ I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted’. There is some difficulty when exercising faith because anytime you are believing God for anything, n will fight you tooth and nail for every ground you try to take. Abraham, Moses, David, Joshua, Gideon, the disciples, the Apostle Paul, just to name a few all experienced difficulty in their walk of faith. And so will you. And your response to difficulty and the challenges that occur when believing for your mate will determine if you win or lose; be a success or failure.
So how do you eradicate doubt from your heart? When the disciples asked Jesus why they could not cast out the demon, what did our Lord and Savior say? He said it was because of their unbelief. Now what did Jesus say would cure unbelief? Let’s look at Matthew 17:19-21. He said the kind of unbelief they were experiencing would not go out by crying and complaining or getting other people to pray but Jesus said this kind of unbelief would go out by praying and fasting.
Therefore if things aren’t moving forward; if things aren’t working out; if you are not seeing the kind of changes you would like to see; check to see if you are harboring doubt. And if you are experiencing any kind of doubt --big or small -- do what Jesus said to do. Eradicate doubt from your heart by going into fasting and praying.†
