Hope for Healing, Faith for Living Podcast

He Heard, He Believed, He Acted

We look again to learn from the true story of a cripple man having faith to be made whole!

Acts 14:5-10

5 When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them (Paul and Barnabas) and to stone them 6 they became aware of it and fled to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra, Derbe, and the surrounding region. 7 There they preached the Good News. 8 At Lystra a certain man sat, impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked. 9 He was listening to Paul speaking, who, fastening eyes on him, and seeing that he had faith to be made whole, 10 said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet!” He leaped up and walked. 

I want to talk more about the healing of the crippled man who had faith to be made well.

First, we need to pay attention to how he had faith to be made well. He had the faith because he was listening to what Paul was saying as he preached the Gospel, which is what Good News means.

Faith comes from hearing. We have to be willing to hear.

Let’s look at Luke 6 where we see Jesus ministering to a great multitude

17 And he (Jesus) came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

They came to hear and be healed.

Remember what Psalm 107:20 says, “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.”

We desire healing but what we must do is connect that desire for healing for a desire of the Word. It’s through the Word that faith for healing comes.

There are two things which we need to always be looking for as we read and study the scriptures, and that is faith and healing. It’s by faith we live and without health, we are hindered in fulfilling God’s calling. Our health is one of the most valuable things we have and therefore faith for healing is priceless to us.

There’s another faith principle that I want to point out and see how it applies to the crippled man who had faith to be made whole.

Hebrews 4:2 WEB

For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard.

The crippled man did profit from hearing the good news preached because he mixed what he heard with faith, active faith. 

He heard the Word and faith came to him. He had faith and he mixed that faith with what he heard because he acted like what he heard was true. Paul instructed the crippled man to stand up. How can a cripple stand? He can’t. But a man who is whole can. And that’s what this man believed, that Jesus makes him whole. 

He acted on what he believed and that’s mixing faith with what he heard.

James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

What if the crippled man said he had faith to be made whole but never acted on it. He would have ended up only deceiving himself because without acting on his faith, his faith is useless.

This man heard the gospel preached. From that, he received faith to be made whole. But, then he also listened to the instruction of Paul for how to act in that faith, by standing.

Let’s be hungry for the Word to see what the will of God is for our lives. Let’s take hold of the Word and allow it to cause faith to rise up within us. And let’s also be hungry for the Word to see how to act in faith, how to use our faith, how to mix faith with the Word so that we become a doer of the Word and experience the will of God in our own lives.

Tim Dumas

www.hopeforhealingfaithforliving.com