Is It Unbelief To Add The Phrase, 'If It Is Your Will At The End Of Prayers?'
Question : Is it unbelief to add the phrase, 'If it is your will at the end of prayers we are not sure whether it is the will of God?' As I have heard many many word of faith preachers and teachers of the Word of God, say that it is a unbelief to pray, 'if it is your will'. I have also read and heard about the great man of God Smith Wigglesworth say, 'I take hold of the will of God and pray by faith to move God if something doesn't get moved in the natural. I move God if He does not move me!' What do you think about this issue?
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
Word of Faith (also known as Word-Faith or simply Faith) is a worldwide Protestant Christian movement that teaches that Christians can access the power of faith or fear through speech. At the heart of the Word of Faith movement is the belief in the "force of faith." It is believed words can be used to manipulate the faith-force, and thus actually create what they believe Scripture promises (health and wealth). Laws supposedly governing the faith-force are said to operate independently of God's sovereign will and that God Himself is subject to these laws. Thus it is turning our faith—and by extension ourselves—into god and opening ourselves to deceitful doctrines of demons that makes us crave for more money and finally takes its toll on the faith of believers where they finally end up becoming strayed from the faith in greediness and end up piercing themselves up with many sorrows (1 Tim 6:10). Any form of covetousness promoted whether with a religious Christian label or a new age label, it is a idolatry that displeases God and is sinful to the core, because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience (Col 3:5-6). Its distinctive teachings are found on radio, Internet, television, and in many Charismatic denominations and communities, it is a movement and not a organisation. But Word of Faith teaching is decidedly unbiblical. Word of Faith is not a denomination and does not have a formal organization or hierarchy, instead, it is a movement that is heavily influenced by a number of high-profile pastors and teachers of whom some have passed away and some do still remain in our days.
The basic doctrine promotes the idea that Christians must not be poor or suffer defeat in order to live a godly life and glorify Jesus Christ, and its theology just strays further and further from Scripture: it claims that God created human beings in His literal, physical image as little gods. Before the fall, humans had the potential to call things into existence by using the faith-force. After the fall, humans took on Satan's nature and lost the ability to call things into existence. In order to correct this situation, Jesus Christ gave up His divinity and became a man, died spiritually, took Satan's nature upon Himself, went to hell, was born again, and rose from the dead with God's nature. After this, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to replicate the Incarnation in believers so they could become little gods as God had originally intended.
It further says, as little gods we again have the ability to manipulate the faith-force and become prosperous in all areas of life. Illness, sin, and failure are the result of a lack of faith, and are remedied by confession—claiming God's promises for oneself into existence. This word of faith movement makes man to become god and God to become a man, thus humans take on god-status and God takes human-status as they are interchanged and kept at the same status, and thus make Jesus Christ as a genie who had come to restore the fortune of all those who call him and ask him to do whatever they desire to do in life. As personal revelation of humans are honored over the canonized Scripture, therefore we see the fruit of this moment of Faith has ended up with such absurd beliefs, which is just one more proof of its heretical nature.
The Word of Faith doctrine teaches that the saving work done by Jesus on the cross included health and provision in this life which is true to a certain extent when it is in the will of God, not only because we see the word 'salvation' in Greek is 'sozo', which is an all inclusive word in its fullest form which means SAVES, HEALS, RESTORES, DELIVERS and MAKES WHOLE, but also we see Jesus through His ministry demonstrated healing and salvation as a package to be received with an overcoming life over sin, sickness and death as a foretaste of the life to come through faith in Him. Not one place anywhere in the Bible suggests that the miraculous power of Jesus has ceased with Jesus and the original apostles of the first century, instead we have seen Jesus Christ work through and through the centuries in the past through the ministries of all those who believed in His power of saving and healing. Even today the power of saving and healing of Jesus Christ works in the same way without change, but only in the will of God can it be received in fullness through faith.
The wrong doctrine of the Word Of Faith that should be renounced are the following ideals of the Bible that cannot be compromised, God is sovereign over all His creation and every one who denies it we should withdraw ourselves from them (Gen 1:1-5; 1 Tim 6:1-5). Everything finds its purpose in God as He has created it all for Himself, and the reason for creating it all is for His own pleasure (Col 1:16; Rev 4:11). God doesn't need faith, but only we as finite humans need faith to reach this infinite God by hearing the word of God to find the will of God to walk in it to please God and find our purpose in Him (Rom 10:17; Mark 11:22; Heb 11:1, 6; Eph 1:11; 1 Thess 5:16-18). God is spirit and does not have a physical body or image to be described (John 4:24; Isa 40:18, 28; Job 36:22-24, CEV), but we as humans have a physical body and also have a spirit to connect with God from within us which was given to us at the time of creation, but then became dead because of the sin of our forefather Adam (Gen 2:7; Eccl 12:7; Rom 5:12), this is where all the similarity ends. We become God in the likeness of His character when we become a new creation to again get connected from within our spirit to the Spirit of God and to God Himself through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior (2 Cor 5:17). But we do not become like Him in the likeness of His power and authority as He not only has unlimited power but also has sovereign authority to use it all, the way He wants, when He wants and where He wants and use it for His own pleasure (Isa 40:25; Psa 115:3), but graciously because we have become God's children in Christ Jesus, when we subject ourselves to Him in absolute surrender and act as a son of God, we regain the power and authority which we lost to Satan and his demons due to sin and therefore become empowered to subdue spiritually the earth now in His will (Eph 1:3; Luke 10:17-20; Jam 4:7-10), and later in the Millennial rule of Jesus and His Church in the present earth to subdue it physically to fulfill His purpose (Gen 1:28-31; Rev 12:7-12; Rom 8:19; Php 3:20-21). After all these things are done and the Millennium rule of Jesus Christ on earth along with the Church gets over and done, then all things in heaven and earth will forever be subject to Jesus Christ, and He himself as the Son of God and Son of Man, will subject Himself to the Father who has put all things under Him to fulfill His foreordained purpose of having fellowship with redeemed humans for eternity ahead, that God in tri-unity may be all in all (1 Cor 15:28). Thus Man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 27; 9:6), but this does not make him a little god or divine.
God only has the Divine nature, and we who are called to share His divine nature through inheritance cannot become God (2 Peter 1:2-4), remember Lucifer (i.e.) the son of the morning as an Arch angel tried to become like Him and was thrown out of heaven to become Satan, and one third of those angels who followed his foot steps became disembodied unclean spirits trying to posses people on earth to inhabit them when it is found empty without God and His word and His Spirit (Isa 14:13-15; Ezek 28:14-19; Rev 12:4; Matt 12:43-45). So just like Satan influenced and deceived the angels to become fallen, he not only has deceived our forefather Adam to become fallen through sin which made all of humanity as sinners without God (Rev 12:4; Rom 5:12, 14, 19), but also he is trying to deceive the humankind to be kept in that fallen state of sin and death as much as possible through his demonic mercenaries who keep them in control through fear and sin, thus Satan acts as their god (2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2; John 12:31; Eph 6:12; 1 John 5:19, 21), therefore we should be careful in this regard not to become deceived by Satan himself who is trying to deceive the whole of humanity mainly believers in these end times by his deceitful doctrines of demons (2 Cor 11:3-4, 13-15; 1 Tim 4:1). We do not relate to God as little gods which mainly appeals to only those unsaved without faith and to those who have a covetous heart that is lifted up with pride because of their rich earthly status and privileged positions that God has bestowed upon them (John 11:33-35; Psa 82:6-7; Ezek 28:1-10; Isa 43:10; 44:6; Psa 8:6-8), but we as an adopted dear and beloved children of God, we can relate to Him from our spirit to His Spirit directly and communicate with Him any time any place and any amount of time (Rom 8:15-17; Eph 1:5; 5:1; John 1:12; Acts 17:29; John 16:7).
Christ is Eternal (John 8:58), the Only Begotten Son (John 3:16), and the only incarnation of God in the human flesh (John 1:1, 2, 14, 15, 18; John 14:9; 1 John 2:22-23; 4:2). In Jesus Christ dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col 2:9; 1 John 4:1-2). When Jesus came to earth forfeiting his Divine glory to become a man, yet He remained in the form of God within his earthly body in his spirit as he cannot become to be something else other than who He is already (John 17:5; Php 5:2-8), God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14; Isa 9:6). By becoming a man, Jesus gave up the glory of heaven but not His divinity (Philippians 2:6-7), though He did choose to withhold His power while walking the earth as man in order to walk pleasing to the Heavenly Father in His perfect will and learn obedience through suffering (Matt 4:6; Matt 27:39-40; 41, 42, 43; Heb 10:5-7; 5:7-8).
At its core is the same lie Satan has been telling since the Garden: “You shall be as God” (Genesis 3:5), the word of faith movement has been deceived in this regard to gulp the lies of Satan and his demons (John 10:10). I do accept that there are good things with them in certain other areas and doctrines, but this 'little god' lie has the potential to wreck the faith of people of God and sear the conscience with the lies that outweighs the good things (1 Tim 1:19; Acts 23:1; 24:16; 1 Tim 4:2).
Our faith comes from God in the first place (Ephesians 2:8; Hebrews 12:2) and is not something we create for ourselves, our hope is in the Lord, not in our own words, not even in our own faith but only in the unchanging love of God (Psalm 33:20-22; Rom 8:25; Gal 2:20; Rom 8:32, 38-39; 1 Cor 13:13). So all I would say is to be beware of the teaching of the Word of faith which closely relates itself to health and wealth Gospel to create a unruly covetous heart of disobedience to God.
Now having understood the errors of the word of faith, we now know it is not unbelief to add the phrase, 'If it is your will at the end of prayers which we are not sure whether it is the will of God?', because even Jesus prayed like that before getting on to the Cross and there on the Cross where he felt for a moment of time as though God has forsaken him forever (Matt 26:39, 42, 44). It is natural and perfectly right to pray 'if it is thy will' in whatever matter we are not sure of as God's will, whether in healing, business, personal life, family problem, church problem etc (Jam 4:11-12, 13-14, 15-17)...as for Brother Smith Wigglesworth he had a gift of faith to know the will of God and take hold of it to perform miracles in his public ministry which cannot be equated to his personal life which was between him and God only (1 Cor 12:7-11; 1 Pet 4:10-11), so that cannot be applied to a saint in the Church who takes care of his life and seeks God daily to find the will of God like the rest of us through praying and reading the Word of God (Rom 12:2; Acts 6:4; Isa 55:6-7; 66:2; Jer 29:13). The Great Smith Wigglesworth himself struggled in his personal life to seek and find the will of God regarding many things he did not understand, that is why he prayed constantly and read the word of God equally for all his waking hours, so we must not consider an exception and try to make it as a principle for all (Luke 4:27).
Much Blessings...
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