Faith Versus Magic - Third Peter

Jesus taught that people utter whatever fills their hearts. This applies to truth tellers and liars. What is inside is going to come out. We might think of the mouth as the pressure vent of the soul.

For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. ³⁵ "The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. ³⁶ "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. ³⁷ "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." Matthew 12:34-37 (NASB)

When we hear people lie, curse, mock, belittle, accuse, and vilify authority, we know that what fills their hearts is inspired by Satan, who is the arch rebel, liar, and destroyer.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” ¹³ “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” ¹⁴ “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” ¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ¹⁶ in their paths are ruin and misery, ¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known.” ¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:12-18 (ESV)

In contrast, when love for God and his truth fills us, it will be revealed in words of affirmation, praise, and faith.

Faith is the conviction that God is loving, kind, powerful, and utterly trustworthy and true to his promises. When we receive a promise from God by faith, it is the most natural thing in the world to share it aloud.

The night I first came to believe in Jesus, I immediately told my friends and dorm mates who were still awake. How could I not? I had just met the Creator of the universe, the risen Lord! I discovered that he is knowable and loves us! Everyone needs to know this, and I had to tell it. When we see how loving, kind, and generous God is, we want to tell others.

Making a good confession is the overflow of a grateful heart.

Over the years, however, I have observed another type of “confession” of faith that to me seems more like an attempt to control God and get the outcome we want through saying the right words. People who do this seem to believe that God will not bless us unless we maintain a correct attitude and expression of faith, which includes saying the proper faith words and not speaking words of doubt or unbelief. Although there is some truth to this position, I believe it tends toward what I call “magical” thinking and treats making a faith confession like reciting an incantation.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines an incantation as “a written or recited formula of words designed to produce a particular effect.” Many people confess words of faith in this manner, thinking that, if they say the right words over and over, being careful to avoid any negative words of doubt, God is bound to do what they confess.

Some even go so far as to say we create our own reality through our confession. This firmly plants on our shoulders the responsibility to obtain what God has promised by saying the right things. It portrays God as a rather stern legalist who blesses people if they keep the rules, but withholds blessings when they slip up. I strongly disagree with this view. We are already blessed with all blessings in Christ. Gaining this understanding causes faith to well up in our hearts, which will result in our confessing that faith. We don’t have to manipulate God through clever words to get his blessings. They are already ours.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, Ephesians 1:3 (ESV)

Unenlightened people over the centuries have tried to use religion to control outcomes. Witchcraft by definition is an attempt to control people and situations through using spells, incantations, curses, and other means that employ the activity and power of demon spirits and evil. Those who try to control and use malevolent beings and power for their own purposes have to make an allegiance with the “dark” side. The Bible expressly forbids this. We should certainly never attempt to manipulate the powers of evil on our behalf. Neither should we think that God can be so manipulated. We serve him; not he us.

The God revealed through Christ and the New Testament writings is so completely committed to us that it is strange to think that anyone would believe that he requires us to say things “just so” in order to get him to bless us.

While our words are extremely important, God is not a stern taskmaster who is looking for any slip up in order to deny us what we need and want. I have been around many people who are battling cancer, but who are afraid of saying the “c” word, lest by doing so they somehow give that disease power over them. This is a very harmful form of magical thinking. Either we have cancer or we do not.

We need to be realists who accept that in our fallen world we have to face the reality of sickness and death. In fact, we cannot be healed unless we are first sick.

People who cannot even admit they are sick are living in a form of self-deception. Fear is usually the culprit that leads to such behavior. I remember hearing of a case when a young man’s family would not allow any person in the room with him as he was in the last stages of dying from pancreatic cancer, unless their confession of faith and healing was in alignment with the family’s. They apparently feared that a visitor’s unbelief might block his healing. How tragic. People who loved this young man were not allowed to comfort him as he prepared to transition into eternity. It is a very different thing to encourage a person to be healed and to prepare someone to die well. Dying is part of our human experience, and doing so in faith and peace is a mighty testimony, just as healing is. Think about it: healing is always a temporary stay of our confrontation with death.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. ⁵ God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT) )

The God of the New Covenant is the initiator of our salvation. He chose us to be his friends and family before the world began. Christ died for us when we were still his enemies. (Romans 5:8-10) God gave us his best, his own Son, freely and without reserve.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? ³² Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Romans 8:31-32 (NLT)

Why would we think that he would be hesitant to bless us, and maybe even refuse to heal or provide for us, unless we perfectly profess a testimony of faith?

What many people fail to grasp is that God is predisposed to bless us. Christ earned our blessings for us.

He is not looking for reasons to withhold good things from us. He has already given us all blessings in Christ. He does want us to grow in our trust in him and his promises. He may take us through some difficult tests and trials in life to develop faith in us, but he is a loving Father who carefully superintends the entire process.

I suppose that people try to use a good confession to “make” God bless them because they do not know or believe how much God loves them.

Their view of God does not line up with how the Bible presents him. For example, Abraham and Sarah both laughed at God’s promise that they would have a son in their old age, but God did not reject them or take back his word. Jacob complained that everything was against him, just before discovering that God had actually been working continually behind the scenes to give him the biggest blessing of his life – seeing Joseph again and having all his family’s needs supplied during a terrible famine. Gideon struggled with unbelief, but God did not cast him off. Jeremiah struggled with despondency at times, but God still used him mightily. Peter actually denied the Lord three times but was restored because he believed that Jesus still loved him. Thomas refused to believe that Jesus rose from the dead until our Lord appeared physically to him and told him to put his hand in his side and his finger in the nail holes. Does this sound like a God who would cut off a blessing to us if we fail to properly confess faith or dare to say the dreaded “c” word?

Confessing what we believe should be an natural response of a heart full of faith, not a contrived and contorted means to earn a blessing from a hesitant God.

Faith comes first, then the confession. When we get it backward, we start trying to confess our way to faith. Real faith knows it already has what God has promised and is unafraid to say so.

Magical faith is not sure that God can be trusted to bless us on his own and believes it must constrain God by properly saying incantational faith words.

Consider the following passage.

And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²² And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” ²³ And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” ²⁴ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” ²⁵ And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” Mark 9:21-25 (ESV)

The father of this demonized boy had very imperfect faith, but he knew enough to come to Jesus and not let go. That was what Jesus was looking for.

If saying, “I believe; help my unbelief!” is all it takes to persuade Jesus to help us, this is a bar most of us can get over.

Jacob was riddled with doubts and fears for most of his adult life, but his relationship with God was real and was based on God’s choice of him. (Romans 9:13) As he prepared to meet his brother Esau after years of being apart, he was terrified that his brother was going to harm him, as he promised he would do years earlier. The 400 armed men with Esau did nothing to calm his fears. The night before this reunion, Jacob wrestled with an angel from God. The angel overpowered him and commanded him to let him go, but Jacob said these very important words.

...“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32:26 (ESV)

Faith is a personal relationship with God. It understands that God’s heart is to bless us because he has chosen us before the foundation of the world and loves us dearly. Faith knows that since God has already given us Jesus, all other blessings come with him. Faith knows that it can hold tight to God until it receives all the blessings God has already given us in Christ. Faith knows that God loves us and is the greatest giver of all.