True Bible faith flows from a crucified life. Soulish faith rejects the personal cross of the believer and anything else that denies the fulfillment of the desires of self.

True Bible faith regards physical symptoms as real and accepts these limitations until God removes them or tells us what to do about them, or says to ignore them. Soulish faith states that the physical symptoms are of Satan or due to our unbelief, or an illusion. Soulish faith and "positive thinking" are similar to Eastern mysticism and Christian Science.

The logical outcome of believing that our physical symptoms are due to our unbelief or are an illusion, or that any other problem in the material world is due to our unbelief or is an illusion, is that we can remake reality by choosing to call into existence what we desire.

We state what we want to be true, picture it, and then act as though it has happened already. If we wish to make this supernatural process acceptable to Christian people we add Jesus' name to what we are imaging. However, God's will doesn't enter the process (unless we are under the delusion that what we desire is automatically God's will because we desire it).

The "faith" passages of the Scripture stress that it shall happen, not that it has happened because we have said it or claimed it.

There have been Christians to whom the Spirit of God has imparted a special gift of faith and they have been able to work extraordinary miracles. For most of us, however, impartations of Divine faith for the purpose of working dramatic miracles are rare. Yet they do take place on occasion and then we are able to perform miracles.

Those who have experienced such impartations of Divine faith, whether for the healing of the body or for the remedying of some other kind of problem, know the difference between Divinely imparted faith, and the efforts of the soul to believe. The author has experienced Divine healing as well as other miracles, and such Divine intervention actually changes the physical realm. It is quite different from the futile efforts of the soul to "believe."

The Lord Jesus made some statements that seem to invite soulish belief and presumption. Let us consider this aspect of the problem.

The disciples of the Lord were unable to cast the devil out of a child. They asked Jesus why they were unable to do so. The Lord's response was as follows:

And Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say to you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you. (Matthew 17:20)

This appears to be an invitation to human beings to manipulate nature at their convenience. It is nothing of the kind. Rather, it is a comment of the Lord regarding the fallen state of man. Man's sin in the beginning cut him off from a normal, loving relationship with his Father in Heaven. A once joyous, responsive material realm died under the Divine curse.

To be continued.