UNBELIEF MAY BELIEVE IT WILL RECEIVE FROM GOD

“But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed.  (7)  For do not let that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord;  (8)  he is a double-minded man, not dependable in all his ways”, Jam.1:6-8.

This might sound as the strangest piece of Scripture in the book of James. It says here that unbelief awaits to receive, it expects from God too. James warns that “Do not let that man think he shall receive…”, for he does so and we should never let him do so either.

This is a blow to these kind of doctrines which state that if you believe this or that way, deny it to your soul to think otherwise by being truthful to yourself, ignoring the very root of your whole being – there where you cannot reach ever by compulsion, force or constrain – so as to make believe and cover it up rather, so as to still down its craving voice for righteousness, having honesty fully denied to your being and heart. To people it will look like spotless faith, as before God it will stink as hypocrisy.

God constrains us to believe so, I mean, to think that one will and may receive, especially when our hearts from deep within are believing and yet we deny its plain assurances to the outward of our being. People have many mountains to surmount, having tricks in their minds which play with them and toss them around. I have seen holy people believing they had no faith at all and have also come across such as are otherwise, believing hard with no real faith in them. Therefore, because faith is both a gift and a fruit deriving from a relationship, if that relationship is there, so will faith be - whatever people may believe concerning it; if not, faith is useless and, in fact, absent. I found during work in the fields of the Harvest, that most people are naturally constrained to believe when they are unbelievers – their heart does that unto them all – and (are constrained to) disbelieve when they have the roots for some genuine faith within their reach.

There is a natural response from God once He is doing something. If He is living and genuinely present within our souls, if we have been baptized into Him for sure, we have not only His nature, but His feelings concerning things He will do, from inside. We feel as He feels concerning things for He feels there if we have learned to live with all of that at all – our cup will run over to the outside. If God is doing something, those feelings and thinkings arise, emerge from within without force and are naturally there. God could speak and say how and what to do or to bring about – but He, living in man, just feels there and supposes no trumpet should sound since man is aware of whatever is inside himself. God’s voice is different during times of intimacy, than it will be during times of segregation between man and God. Samuel heard His voice and understood it not at first. Later on, we read “not one of his words fell to the ground”. It shows the difference if God speaks in intimacy, for people regard God’s word as Samuel’s and vice-versa – “his words” were in fact His and for that reason they did not fall to the ground!

Now, this is what happens; we should not, therefore, let our feelings be so confused as never to differentiate between them and those from God. Let's not live in our way of feeling it and let’s be still and know just how He is God, for God feels there and makes it known unto us by that dealing - by Himself. We also feel there. But there is also a lack of feeling from God in case we are separated from Him either by sin, or by own-mindedness and the desire that God would do our things as well. Usually people feel, so as to say conveniently it is from God. They need to believe it comes from the Lord. To deny your ways to yourself, since you are lost in own experience, is but to live if God is there at all. If you deny them and God is not there, you will not be worse off anyway for you will feel a kind of emptiness which will be leading to God and to a fullness in Him; but it makes a world of a difference if God is there. If sin comes in, however, if conscience conceives ways of disregarding sin at all, we read that faith is shipwrecked. We read Paul saying by the Holy Spirit, “holding faith and a good conscience, which some have put away and made shipwreck as to faith”, 1Tim.1:19. But that did not prevent Hymeneus and Alexander to carry on in a way they learned before, as if nothing has changed at all by having God moving in and closer to the essence of man. They carried on thinking they would still receive and necessarily tell themselves so by convincing others Paul was wrong. And the way they tried at that, was to speak up against Paul in such a way that it was meant to bring some support to their inner convictions, through the support from other people so as not to let a non-existing faith to extinguish itself, once they came to agree concerning their views.

If others support your views, then unbelief will easily think it will receive. Unbelief has a lust in itself, and that is to have the opinion of others say good things about it concerning any issue whatsoever. Unbelief and bad tempered talking against God’s holy vessels, are often hand in hand for it stands not to believe it is wrong and to have others think as it is, and granting support unto it is a great help towards unbelief, staying on in the life and heart of deceived men that way. To make as if unbelief's ways are reliable, is to have error creep into church. From there on is but an easy step to have the devil do as God would, even through miracles in the name of Jesus. But the Bible says, “in all his ways he is not dependable” and “let no such man think…” If you are wise, find ways to “let not such think” they will receive from God. If they will think they will not receive from God, that will be faith and not the opposite. If they are crushed down, it may come to cause faith in them eventually by the working of the Holy Spirit within them. To believe truth is faith. It takes an unbeliever to believe lies with all his heart. To believe lies is unbelief and, in fact, a coming consequence deriving from an unwilling heart to believe truth. To disregard lies as such, (even though it might not be a saving faith as yet), is faith, even if such lies carry the stamp of the Word. “Let not such man think…” he is dependable then. It will help him believe truth if he does not have a heart to believe lies from then on. To disbelieve lies, is faith. Amen.

José Mateus