In 1985, Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for ten million dollars and put it in his wallet. He dated the check for 1995. In the memo it says, “For acting services rendered.” At that moment, he was a 21 years old man with no money. He was sitting in his broken down Toyota, parked on a hill overlooking Hollywood. As a young person, his family was so poor that he worked nights to help make ends meet. He ended up dropping out of high school from sheer exhaustion.
Undaunted, he wrote the check to himself. He looked out at the world and believed he would be entertaining the masses one day and would be a millionaire. We know the rest of the story. In 1995, Jim Carrey was not making 10 million dollars per film, he was making 20 million dollars per film. This little story shows the power of true faith. Jim Carrey tenaciously went after what he believed would make his life worth living. He would let nothing stop him and he achieved it.
What a happy ending to a sad beginning. I wonder what it has been like since all Jim Carrey’s dreams have come true. I’ll tell you exactly what it has been like from his own mouth.
“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
~Jim Carrey
I told you that story not to be depressing but to prove a point. If we believe something is the true answer to the problem or problems we are facing, we will go after it with everything in us. It’s the way we are wired. Jim believed money and success was the answer. Therefore he poured his entire being into that one thing. He achieved it and found out the truth. Although it wasn’t the answer, his actions proved he believed it was.
Most people (even professing Christians) never find the answer to life. Most will chase everything the rest of the world chases. They will live and die without the overflowing and incredible life Jesus died a horrible death to give us. It’s tragic at best and blasphemous at worst.
If what we say we believe produces no action, we don’t believe it.
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
James 2:17
I looked up dead in the Greek. It means dead (that’s funny).
Dead (nekros) – “dead, what lacks life, not able to respond to impulses, or perform functions.”
God’s Word is so simple and yet incredibly profound. We can argue against and defend ourselves but it won’t hold up. If we believe, there is action If we don’t, there is no action .
“Belief=action”
“Unbelief=no action”
The woman with an issue of blood blew me away this morning as I read chapter 5 of the book of Mark. She was healed from a disease from which she suffered for twelve years. Jesus said her faith healed her, not Him.
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.
Mark 5:25-26
The woman heard about Jesus and was determined to get to Him. The crowd was pressing in all around Him, but faith spurred her on to do whatever it took. Why did she make such an effort? The text plainly says, “…she grew worse.” (Mark 5:26). She probably was weak and didn’t feel well at all. She may have felt like giving up but she didn’t. She believed touching Him was the answer. It was life or death to her.
Why didn’t she cry out and ask Him to touch her so she would be healed? I don’t know all her reasoning, but I do know that if a woman was bleeding, she was considered unclean. If someone touched her, they would also become unclean.
Undaunted, she circumvented asking Him and went straight for His power. The Bible tells us her thought process. She knew He couldn’t touch her according to the Law (we all know He would have) but that did not stop her from touching Him.
For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”
Mark 5:28
“If…I will”
She did and she was.
If we only realized how tenacious God wants us to be when we come to Him. He loves it when we believe Him hard. “She thought to herself.” None of us know the power of what we think to ourselves. What rolls around in our heads all the time is what will shape every single thing about us. It will either motivate us or suck the life out of us. She had only heard about Jesus. She believed what she heard and nothing was going to keep her from getting to Him.
None of us will experience Jesus until we believe what we hear about Him and decide to go after Him wholeheartedly ourselves. God ALWAYS responds to a person who seeks after Him with their entire heart.
Listen to me…nothing and no one can stop you from getting to God. We are the only ones who can stop us. God will move heaven and earth to let us find Him if we are serious. Most people are half-hearted. Half-hearted gets you nowhere.
God is worthy of everything and if we don’t act on that truth, we will not know Him.
This has nothing to do with getting better. We come to Him with all our diseases: physical, mental, and emotional. Our sicknesses are meant to drive us to Him in our hopelessness. The woman that was bleeding didn’t let her condition and the shame that accompanied it stop her. She became more determined than ever to touch Him.
Under the Old Testament Law, a woman was unclean as long as she was bleeding.
Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.
Leviticus 12:4
Her uncleanness affected everything. Her relationship to others and her relationship to God. She was not able to be part of her people or go to the sanctuary. Her condition made her an outcast.
I love her. She snuck up behind Jesus and took His power without Him giving it to her. By faith, she took it (I think she should be in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11).
By faith, the woman with the issue of blood took her healing without even asking!
Jesus couldn’t stop her. He didn’t even know what was happening. However, He felt power leave Him and go into someone else.
When we move down here by faith, there is a power unleashed from heaven.
The reason we don’t see this power often is because we misunderstand why we are here. We are here to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Most of us see scripture and think, “How can I get what I desire and glorify myself?”
When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James 4:3
In God’s eyes, motive matters. If He gives us what we lust for, we will only grow more selfish and self-centered. If we seek Him because we know He is the answer to everything, He will give Himself and His healing to us.
If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.
Jeremiah 29:13
“If…you will.”
It’s a promise and God cannot lie.
What would happen if we all looked for God like this?
She looked with her whole heart. She believed with her whole heart. She found Him, touched His garment, and a miracle happened. He did not become unclean, she became clean.
I talk to many people with problems that are way over my head. They are desperate and rightly so. To act as if this world is a friendly and comfortable place is delusional. All of us have real problems–physical and emotional.
God put this woman with an issue of blood into scripture for a reason. He wanted us to emulate her. He wanted us to look at her example and say, “If He did it for her, He will do it for me.”
She had been to every doctor she could find, spent all she had, and had only grown worse. She believed doctors could fix her or she wouldn’t have given them all her time and all her money. She found out they were not the answer but it took twelve years for her to truly believe it. She was not half-hearted.
We can take every medicine to dull our minds, we can see every counselor, but I know for a fact, unless we get to Jesus, we will only grow worse.
After I listen to people tell me their hopeless situations, I usually completely ignore their situation and tell them how to get to God. Our situations are never the problem (even if we got ourselves into them). The lack of God’s power and presence is our greatest problem.
Jesus will never tell us He has no idea what to do. Until we believe that, we will chase counselors, another man (or woman), money, sex, and every other thing to make us whole.
Look at your life.
What is your focus?
Whatever the answer to that question is will be what you pour all your energy, money, and time into.
If it’s the pursuit of God, you will find Him and get all His healing.
If it’s anything else, you will only grow worse.
My goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace,
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God;
’Tis His to lead me there—not mine, but His—
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
~Francis Brook
