Sid: My guest Jennifer LeClaire and she’s News Editor with Charisma Magazine. Jennifer we read in the Bible all you need is a mustard seed of faith that’s the littlest, tiniest seed there is and you can move mountains. But the truth of the matter is there is a disconnect most Christians don’t have their prayers answered, why?
Jennifer: Well because there’s a misconception that all you need is a little faith and yeah all you need is a little but it’s got to be pure faith. You know the Bible talks about two types of faith: Great Faith, and Little Faith. Just some quick examples, you know we see Abraham had great faith, David had great faith, Joshua, Caleb had great faith. In the New Testament we find the centurion had great faith, the woman whose daughter was possessed by a devil; Jesus talks about them having great faith. But what I find really interesting is that His own disciples on more than one occasion He rebuked them, or He called them out corrected them for having little faith. And the bottom line is that they had the Living Word with them; and yet they had little faith. We have the Word of God, we have the Old Testament, the New Testament, we have the stories of the heroes of the faith and too often we have little faith. That’s because we’ve allowed doubt and unbelief to creep in and contaminate our faith. We’ve allowed fear to contaminate our faith and our job as believers is to believe and we need to cultivate pure faith. We need to cultivate mustard seed faith but it used to be pure faith. And we can do that by mediating on the Word of God, I mean there is many different ways to do that but it can be done. We don’t need mountain moving faith to move mountains, we just need pure faith. In other words, we don’t need faith the size of a mountain to move a mountain we just need pure faith.
Sid: And now you used the word that a lot of people hear but they don’t understand how do you personally mediate on the Word of God?
Jennifer: That is a really good question because the New Age movement has tried to take on those same terminology and a lot of people in the Body of Christ they sort of think meditation is taboo but it’s not. The Bible uses it; Joshua in the book of Joshua we see that God said to Joshua “Meditate on this Word day and night and then you will find good success, you’ll make your way prosperous.” And if you look at that word mediate in the Bible you’re going to see that it means to chew on, to roll it over in your mind, to confess it; to mutter it. And that’s what we need to be doing we need to be speaking the Word out of our mouth. One way that I like to do things is I’ll take a scripture and I’ll take just a bite of it at a time so if the scripture is “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I’ll go through that scripture a number of times and begin to emphasize one word each time. So I’ll say “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Then I’ll say “I CAN do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And by emphasizing each of those words it just resonates in my spirit it just feeds my spirit, it just builds up my spirit and I pretty soon I memorize that scripture, I begin confessing it when something comes up against me when doubt comes up against me, unbelief, when fear begins to speak to my heart to speak to my mind. It just automatically comes out of my spirit “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” or whatever the word is that’s applicable to the situation because the Holy Spirit really does put us in remembrance of the Word. He really does instruct our hearts but we have to put the word in our heart if we want the Word to come out of our heart when the pressure comes on.
Sid: And most people have the word in their mind, and we talked earlier about this mental assent; they absolutely agree with the Word of God but it’s not in their spirit. I know that by meditating on the word especially the way you teach it, it will get in their spirit because if it was just in their mind no wonder it doesn’t work.
Jennifer: And you can’t just read it you know you got to have the word in front of your eyes, in your ears and in your mouth. The Bible says that “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” I think personally in my life I’ve seen that there’s nothing more powerful than when I hear myself speaking the word of God.
Sid: Let me just say this, doctors have stated that if you tell a lie long enough you won’t even remember it’s a lie; you will think it’s the truth that’s the way we’re built. So how much more if you tell the truth long enough to yourself?
Jennifer: That’s right that’s what so important what we say about ourselves and we talked about self-doubt earlier we’ve got to be saying what God says about us. And I really think that’s the first step is getting rooted and grounded in who you are in Christ and then speaking from that place because when you know who you are and you know what belongs to you faith is just it just comes.
Sid: Now, just out of curiosity you’re a single mom did you teach these principals to your daughter and how did it play out in her life?
Jennifer: I do, I have taught them to my daughter she goes to a church that also teaches these same principals and it has worked out in her life. She’s a very talented musician, last year she was second chair in the band and she really had her heart to become the best and to become the first chair. And that’s really unheard of because she’s one of the younger kids in the group, but it turns out that as she believed the Lord and as she practiced; now it’s not all about confess we’ve got to do our part you know we’ve got to take action. And she practiced and she confessed and she stuck with it and believed God and now she’s going to be first chair. That’s just a small story of a teenager’s faith but she has seen other times where God has…
Sid: Well, let me just ask you this how about in the health arena these young kids get sick all the time what’s going on with your daughter.
Jennifer: Oh no she doesn’t ever get sick she walks in divine health she had her shots when she was five years old and she’s been only to the doctor one other time since then. Honestly you know we take our vitamins then we confess the word and I think we can do natural things and we can do spiritual things and the combination of that sort of wisdom it can produce miracles in your life.
Sid: Now in your book that we’re making available “Faith Magnified” or “How to be Free from Doubtaholism.” Tell me about that word doubtaholism.
Jennifer: Yeah I believe that doubt is like a spiritual disease it’s comfortable to alcoholism and that’s sort of a play on words from that perspective but it’s debilitating. I mean just like the alcohol debilitates you it causes confusion and depression and fear and anxiety and all of these horrible things; so does doubtaholism it produces instability in your life, double-mindedness, back tracking and inability to receive the wisdom of God. These are all the opposite of faith, I mean God has given us a measure of faith, He has not given us doubt, He has not given us fear, He has not given us unbelief.
Sid: Well, what you teach in your book is how to break the cycle of unanswered prayer and if that’s you I would love for you to teach a little bit on the 12 steps, so that people can get rid of doubt and unbelief and be able to have this great faith.
Jennifer: It all starts with admitting that you have a problem; I mean really the first step to getting doubt out of your life is to see it for what it really is. And honestly no condemnation intended here but it’s a sin to doubt the Word of God; the Bible says “Without faith it’s impossible to please God.” But it also says “That with faith all things are possible.” So we have to see that when we’re doubting God’s Word you know we’re in the wrong. God is never in the wrong; when our prayers are not answered it’s not God’s problem it’s often times we have a problem. Oftentimes it’s a lack of faith or a lack of the pure faith that we were talking about in our lives. So that’s really the first step is really recognizing it and that’s the problem is so many times we don’t recognize that really it’s doubt there’s doubt in our hearts. And of course we don’t want to admit it because you know after all who wants to admit that they don’t believe God’s Word especially in the Christian World you know we want to look good without friends but we need to humble ourselves and we need to say “You know what, I’m having a real struggle here with this doubt, I can see it I can identify it I hear these thoughts in my head and I want to get rid of it and that’s the first step.” So once you’ve admitted your problem you need to confess the fault you know the Bible says “Confess your fault one to another so that you might be healed.” And we also need to confess it to God and we need to confess it to our peers if we’re having a struggle, if we really need to help we need to get reinforcement. But we also need to confess it to God then let God; “God you know what I haven’t believed Your word I’ve doubted You in this area and I’m sorry.” And we need to confess that to God and Bible says “When we confess our faults, when we confess our sins He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness.” And that’s really the key we’ve got to be up front; look God knows if there’s doubt in your heart He knows and so it’s not a secret to Him. We have to confess it it’s a spiritual principal of confessing our sins, confessing our faults that we might be healed that we might be delivered. That’s where true healing and deliverance begins from this thing called doubt and unbelief.
Sid: When someone sits under your teaching and goes through these 12 steps and they get rid of doubt and unbelief, what happens to their prayer life?
Jennifer: Well they begin to see prayer answered it’s almost like unclogging a clogged drain, I mean just lets the faith flow freely they begin to get confidence. I mean it begins with little prayers and that they build their faith and they see prayer answers in small areas they begin to pray for even greater things and they begin to build greater faith. That’s really what it’s all about in God’s Kingdom faith.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth