Exalt the Truth over the Facts

Until you make God’s Word the highest authority, it will not have complete authority in your life. If God’s Word doesn’t have authority, then someone or something else does. The word of doctors or well-meaning, sympathetic family members and friends and their testimonials of death and failure can carry authority in your heart where your health is concerned if you allow them to. My wife and I had to deal with this issue when the doctor told me the growth they had removed from my neck was cancerous, that they would have to do more extensive surgery, and that I wasn’t going to be healed. We dealt with it again when the doctors told us concerning Michael, “If this disease progresses, he will never walk; he will be in a wheelchair all of his life; get prepared for it.”

Doctors mean well and should be honest with their patients, but worst- case scenarios communicated as inevitable outcomes can carry functional authority that is hard to overcome. If you have failed to make God’s Word the final authority in your life, the negative words of others—especially those you have confidence in—can rob your faith and your health.

I remember several years ago my pastor, Bob Nichols, preached a great message during a ministers’ conference on making God’s Word the final authority in your life. During this message, he made a statement that has stuck with me ever since. He said, “Whose report do you believe? The report of sickness and disease, poverty and lack, failure and loss, and all the other things satan will try to send in your life? Or do you believe God’s report of blessing and prosperity, healing and life, success and favor? Just remember, the first report is not the last report! If you believe God’s report, His arm of power will come through for you in the midst of every other evil report.”

The Scripture he used to validate this principle is found in Isaiah 53:1, (NKJV):

“Who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

Every person I know needs and desires the arm of the Lord to be revealed to them. But the condition for God’ s arm of power to manifest in our lives is to believe His report—the report of His Word—above every other report. The problem for most of us when the crises of life come is that it is easier to believe what we see or hear right in front of us than to believe the report of God’s eternal Word.

This principle will work for you in your health, your finances, your marriage, your children, and every area of your life. Real spiritual warfare works like this: When the enemy comes to you with a lying symptom in your body, or some lying rebellious behavior of one of your children, he is bringing an evil report. Your response should be: “That may be the facts, devil, but let me tell you the way it really is.” Then, tell the devil the truth about the situation. Give him the Word, and he won’t stay around long. The symptoms will leave. Your child’s behavior will change. Your marriage will be healed. Hold fast to what the truth says about your health, marriage, finances—about everything in your life. It is not lying to agree with God’s Word and to declare what it says about your health, even when you are feeling bad. Neither is it a bad confession to admit you are having a physical struggle.

Faith is not denying the facts, but rather exalting the truth. I like to say it like this: “But” the facts with the truth, not the other way around. Instead of saying, “I know that God’s Word says that by His stripes I am healed, but I am really sick,” it is better to say, “I am really not feeling well today, but the Word says by His stripes I am healed.”

Do you see the difference? I tell people this: Whatever is on the other end of their “but” is what they really believe. Healing is not always instantaneous. In fact, many times it is a process. The last words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Mark were His instructions to His disciples that they “will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:18, NKJV). Recovery implies a process. I love testimonies of instantaneous healing. But don’t give up on your healing just because it didn’t happen instantly. Keep the switch of faith turned on. Keep exalting the truth above the facts and the truth will eventually win out.

A couple approached my wife and me one day and expressed their discouragement over the lack of improvement in the husband’s condition after several people had prayed over him and after several months of their holding onto the Word. I asked the husband: “Have you ever cut down a large tree with an axe?” He said he had. Then I asked, “Which chop of the axe brought down that tree?” He thought for a minute and then responded, “Well, I guess all of them.” I said, “You’re right. And the same principle is true when it comes to your healing.

Every prayer of faith, every step of obedience, and every confession exalting the truth above the facts is another swing of the sword of the Spirit that will eventually cut you completely free from that sickness and disease. Your ‘suddenly’ will come. Don’t stop swinging the sword of the Spirit. Don’t stop declaring your healing. Don’t stop exalting the truth above the facts.”

That analogy seemed to help them. We all love one-round faith fights. But not all of them are over in one round. If they go longer, we need to add patience to our faith. God said He would always cause us to triumph as long as we don’t quit (1 Corinthians 2:14). Keep swinging your sword. Keep exalting the truth above the facts and God will bring you the victory, just as you have seen and heard Him do for others!

Adapted from Greg Mohr’s book, Your Healing Door.