by Matt Sorger
Over time the truth of God’s Word and His abiding presence within me solidified my identity in Christ, giving me much more personal confidence and a healthy sense of self. What the enemy meant for bad, God turned for good. As I learned to stand for my personal convictions and faith as a young person, no matter what names people called me, God would later use me to spread that faith around the world to millions of people. Everything that may have been a magnet for persecution, God has now used for His glory and higher purposes. God’s truth forged my identity. My identity forged my purpose. The revelation of my purpose released supernatural power to do the impossible.
If you have ever been the target of childhood rejection or bullying, you are not alone. Dance legend and prolific actor of the 1950s musicals, Gene Kelly, endured bullying on his walks home from school because he took dance lessons.3 Little did they know he would one day become a movie star with the talents God gave him. Many others who have gone on to do great things also suffered rejection. After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by the casting director to not waste people’s time and go wash dishes. From that moment on he decided to give his entire life to acting.4
Under the Influence of Deception
I want to uncover one of the greatest strategies of the enemy against people. Knowing this one simple truth can completely set you free. A woman once told me a story about something she had experienced. One day she was in her kitchen putting some glasses away when suddenly, out of nowhere, she had this overwhelming desire to drink alcohol. What makes this so unusual is her background. She had come from a family where there was a lot of alcoholism. She grew up in a very dysfunctional home with the police always at her front door as a child. Her father was an alcoholic. Some of her brothers were alcoholics, and they were always stirring up trouble. She grew up detesting alcohol and had never had a drink in her life. She raised her family to feel the same about alcohol. There was never an alcoholic drink in the home. She had never had a desire to drink before. In fact, she hated it. So you can imagine how surprised even she was when this desire to drink came over her.
Later that day she was talking to her husband about it, only to find out that same afternoon he had also experienced a similar thing. While at work he also had a desire to drink alcohol come over him. Neither of them ever drank. So where was this desire coming from? Well, she soon found out not too long after this incident that one of her teenagers was being drawn by alcohol. He had begun to secretly drink with friends at school. The family’s generational weakness was now influencing one of her children. When she found out, she realized exactly what was happening. That desire she felt to drink was not her desire at all. It was a projected thought and feeling that was coming from the enemy that was now hanging around her child. The spirit of alcoholism was tempting her teenager, and a door was being opened to it in his life. It was that very spirit that was now trying to project a desire to drink upon her and her husband. But it was laughable, because she would never tolerate such a thought or feeling. Once she realized where it was coming from, she was able to effectively pray for her child and see total freedom come into his life.
This is something you have to know. Not everything you think or feel is you! This is exactly what the enemy does. He talks to you in the first person, making you think the thoughts are yours. But it goes beyond thoughts or images in your mind. He can also try to project feelings onto you—feelings to drink, feelings to smoke, feelings of lust, feelings of fear, feelings of jealousy, feelings of anger, and so much more. Sure, there are times these feelings will be just you. They can come from your old sinful nature that needs to be crucified with Christ. This is where we need to make a decision that we are going to choose to make godly choices and resist our own flesh. But there are times that it is not just you. As you learn to discern when a feeling is being projected onto you from the enemy, you will have total power over it to resist it and cast it away. Your identity is not based on fleeting emotions. It is based on God’s Word. And that never changes. You are who you are because of Christ in you. He is your true identity.
Reconnecting With Your True DNA
While Brian was still in his mother’s womb, his dad planned to abort him. His dad and mom were in the midst of a divorce, and he did not want another son from her. But by providence of God, Brian’s mom decided he would live. From the age of five to eighteen Brian’s mom told him constantly that his dad would waive at her stomach, saying, “Get rid of that.” Brian reconnected with his dad when he was eighteen. But the words of his mother echoed in his mind, haunting him for years. Was it true? Was he unwanted? Did his dad really feel that way? He was too afraid to really know the truth. The rejection would be too much to bear. He waited for years. Then, when he was thirty-five, he confronted his dad about what he said. It was true. But uncovering this painful place brought healing and restoration as his dad asked for forgiveness.
Growing up, Brian felt an emptiness inside. He missed his connection with an earthly father. But when restoration happened between him and his dad, suddenly he discovered a newfound sense of connection, fulfillment, and identity. Something clicked inside. Something was put back in place as he became aligned with who he was. He saw himself in his dad, and his dad saw himself in Brian. He came out of his dad’s DNA. When he reconnected to his original DNA, the emptiness was gone.
The point is not that we all have to reconnect with our earthly parents. Many may not have the opportunity to do that. Know that God is your heavenly Parent. Psalm 27:10 says, “Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child].” When you connect with God through truth, you align yourself with your true spiritual and eternal DNA. When we are adopted by God as His children, we take on His name, His identity, His nature, His character, and His ways of thinking, talking, and acting. Our identity is no longer in our old life. Our identity is in Him.
We are made in God’s image and come out of His DNA. When we connect back into relationship with our heavenly Father, we come into correct alignment, fulfillment, and completeness in our identity. Something clicks inside of us. We receive a sense of fulfillment with who we really are. This is where true identity is found. As a result of the reunion between Brian and his father, he also reconnected back with his father’s inheritance. The same is true for us. When we connect back into relationship with God, we have full access to God’s inheritance and blessing in our lives. Our identity as a true son and daughter of God qualifies us to receive our full inheritance of blessing and power.
CHAPTER 6
The Power of Faith
Tear the Roof Off
LORD, I DON’T know what You did, but please don’t let me lose it.” These were the words my mom, Veronica, uttered to the Lord the day her symptoms of sickness began to return. It was only three days after she had received a dramatic power encounter with God in the Catholic healing mass. As she was on the floor, being knocked back by God’s power, she felt “volts of electricity” flowing through her body. God’s divine power had driven all sickness out of her body. Though she received this tremendous encounter with the Lord, she was still very young in her faith and in her relationship with God. Up until this point in her life she had spent very little time reading the Bible. So, although she believed in God and had now entered into a beautiful relationship with Him through faith in Christ, she knew very little of the truth found in the Bible.
My mom’s life had been transformed by God’s healing and delivering power. She didn’t even fully understand what had happened to her. All she knew was that Jesus had come in a very personal way and lifted all her burdens and healed all her infirmities. She was desperate not to lose the special gift God had given her, her new life of physical and spiritual wholeness.
As the symptoms of pain began to afflict her body again, she found herself being drawn by the Holy Spirit to read the New Testament. With almost no effort of her own she found herself reading the Bible seven hours a day. This special grace l
asted for three full years. After about three months of living in the Word of God for seven hours a day, she had another supernatural encounter with God.
As my mom sat in her room reading the Bible and praying, suddenly it was like a geyser of faith began to rise up on the inside of her. She simultaneously heard the inner audible voice of God speak to her, “Trust Me. By your faith you are healed.” With that one statement, a supernatural faith arose in her heart, filling her entire being. She was flooded with God’s faith within her. Instantly all the symptoms of pain and affliction left her body, never to return again. Not only was she healed, but now also she had secured and maintained her healing. And it was all connected to faith.
Faith is truly one of the most significant keys to plugging into God’s power on a daily basis. Not only will faith enable you to receive healing from God, but it will also empower you to keep your healing. But the power of faith goes way beyond physical healing. It is the divine connector to all of God’s promises. It enables you to receive everything God has for you. It’s by faith that we receive His grace. It’s by faith that we receive answers to our prayers. It’s by faith that we receive His righteousness and holiness. It’s by faith that we receive freedom and deliverance from all bondage in our lives. It’s by faith that we receive peace, joy, protection, guidance, wisdom, and so much more. It’s by faith that we are empowered to live the life God intended for us to have. It’s by faith that we receive all His benefits and blessings.
Smith Wigglesworth, known as the apostle of faith, moved in tremendous supernatural power. He knew the secret of faith. He once said, “I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe....I can get more out of God by believing Him for one minute than by shouting at Him all night.”1
Understanding the True Source of Faith
If we don’t fully understand where faith comes from, it can be easy to fall back into a self-striving mode. Faith is not something you can work up by your own efforts. I have seen people begin to strive to have faith. I have seen them try to manufacture it by their own ability. It doesn’t work that way. The moment you begin to strive in your own ability is the moment you step out of His grace and into self. You cannot manufacture God’s supernatural faith by your own efforts, but there are things you can do to position yourself to receive His faith.
Let’s take a look at my mom’s healing. As God enabled her by the Holy Spirit to get the Word of God into her spirit and mind, something began to happen. Not only did the truth of the Word renew her mind, but also, the more it was stored up in her heart, the higher her faith level began to rise. Truth released faith in her heart. Reading and thinking upon the Word gave God something to work with.
As her mind was renewed and her spirit filled with the Word, one day the Holy Spirit took the very Word she had sown inside of her and brought it to life. It became more than just words on a page. The Word became her reality. As the Holy Spirit breathed His life into the Word that was stored up in her, a faith far beyond what she could produce herself rose up from deep within. As God spoke to her spirit and mind, “Trust Me. By your faith you are healed,” with the word was released the spirit of faith. Faith engaged the power of God, sealing the miracle God had given her. It was finally finished. Having her mind and heart saturated with the Word was the key to being able to receive God’s faith within her own heart, fully manifesting the work God had already completed.
In regard to the power of divine healing, not everyone will experience the same thing. Some people are healed and never have that healing contested. Others experience a healing touch from God, and a few days later the pain starts to come back again. This is where faith that comes from the Word of God stored up inside of us will empower us to maintain and keep what God has given us.
Ask the Hard Question
If we are not seeing more of the power of God flowing in our lives, we need to ask ourselves a hard question: “What am I sowing into my heart and mind on a daily basis?” If all we are sowing into ourselves are news programs, depressing current events, the opinions and words of others around us, and our own negative confessions, then God doesn’t have much to work with. But if we are sowing His life-giving Word into ourselves on a consistent basis, He can breathe His life into those words and release a supernatural faith in our hearts for the impossible. But we have to make sure we understand the source of faith. The source is not us striving to memorize as much Scripture as possible and then somehow we will obtain the faith we desire. It’s about sowing truth into our hearts and then allowing the Holy Spirit to breathe on it and make it come alive within us. The source of faith is always God, not us.
The Words of Christ
So faith comes by hearing [what is told], and what is heard comes by the preaching [of the message that came from the lips] of Christ (the Messiah Himself).
—ROMANS 10:17
Faith comes as a result of meditating on the teachings and words of Christ. We have to make an important distinction here. Faith specifically comes from hearing the words of Christ, not the words of the Law. The Law reveals our inadequacy. The teachings and words of Christ impart faith into our hearts to receive God’s promises and blessings. This is why spending time in the New Testament is so vital to living a life of faith.
Once you know the truth of God’s Word in your heart, a supernatural faith rises up within you. F. F. Bosworth, an evangelist who had a powerful healing ministry in the 1920s, once said, “The power of God can be claimed only where the will of God is known.”2 As you read God’s Word, you learn His will. Knowing God’s will is where faith begins.
Jesus is the source of our faith, and He is the finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2). As we meditate on His Word and abide in Him, He brings our faith to full maturity and completion. Mature faith accesses the unlimited potential of God’s power in our lives. Faith removes all the natural boundaries and limitations. Faith makes the impossible possible.
Keep It Simple
Growing in my relationship with God as a young person, I was drawn by the Holy Spirit to read the Bible every day. The Word was so new to me. Each day I discovered something new and amazing about God. I read every word of the New Testament and just simply believed it for exactly what it said. After my mom’s healing, our faith was so high as a family that everything we prayed for instantly manifested!
I can remember going into the woods and catching poison oak all over my face. It was terrible! But I read 1 Peter 2:24, which said, “By His wounds you have been healed,” and James 5:14–15, “Is anyone among you sick? He should call in the church elders (the spiritual guides). And they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name. And the prayer [that is] of faith will save him who is sick, and the Lord will restore him; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
We marched right up to the church and had the pastor anoint me with oil and pray over me for healing. The doctor said it would take two to three weeks for it to be healed. I was healed within two days! I was growing in my relationship with God and just simply believed every word in the Bible. I hadn’t yet been taught out of my faith by the religious doctrines of man. God and His Word were just so simple. We just believed and received.
I cannot emphasize enough how the simple act of sowing God’s Word into your life on a consistent basis can unleash God’s faith within you. There was a tremendous forerunner in the healing movement by the name of Dr. Lilian Yeomans who discovered the power source of God’s faith in connection with the Word. Due to the heavy stress of practicing medicine, she became addicted to drugs. Her attempts to quit failed, along with the medical help she received. She came to the point of being completely bedridden. In 1898 she went to John Alexander Dowie’s healing homes in Chicago, where she spent a lot of time in the Bible.
As she read the Word of God, she realized the truth of God’s healing power. With this revelation of truth, her drug addiction vanished, and she was completely healed. She then opened up her o
wn home to the sick where she would read to them scriptures on healing and would tell them to continually speak the Word of God over themselves. As truth entered their hearts and minds, amazing healings took place in their lives. As they lay in their sick beds, after a few days of continually speaking God’s Word out of their own mouths, they would jump up completely healed by God. The puttering of feet could be heard from the floor beneath as the infirmed leaped from their beds praising God.3
The Faith of God
While many translations write, “Have faith in God,” the literal translation found in the Greek New Testament of Mark 11:22 is, “Have you faith of God.” The scripture goes on to say, “Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea! and does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him. For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it]” (Mark 11:23–24).
There is a big difference between having faith in God and having the faith of God. Having faith in God means we believe God is all-powerful and can do anything He wants to do. We all believe God has all the power in the world. The faith of God is very different. This is God’s faith within us, not our human faith in God.
After God healed the man at the gate called Beautiful, Peter addressed the people when they thought it was by Peter’s and John’s own power that the man was healed. He said, “You men of Israel, why are you so surprised and wondering at this? Why do you keep staring at us, as though by our [own individual] power or [active] piety we had made this man [able] to walk?...And His name, through and by faith in His name, has made this man whom you see and recognize well and strong. [Yes] the faith which is through and by Him [Jesus] has given the man this perfect soundness [of body] before all of you” (Acts 3:12, 16).