Two men were told by a doctor that a course of treatment would help them, and both of them prayed about it.
The first prayed and took the treatment and thanked God for it every morning. The second prayed and refused the treatment, and told everyone who asked that he was trusting God rather than men, and he was not being difficult. He believed it. He could show you the verses.
They both used the word faith. They meant two entirely different things by it, and only one of them could tell you what the difference was.
This message is about that difference, because there is a version of it in nearly every life and it is almost never labeled.
The temptation nobody expects
In the wilderness, the devil does something that ought to unsettle every believer who has ever quoted a promise.
He takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and says, cast yourself down. And then he supports the suggestion with Scripture, accurately:
For it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. (Matthew 4:6, King James Version)
That is Psalm 91. It is a real promise, it is in the book, and he did not misquote it.
And Jesus does not answer by disputing the text. He answers with a different text:
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. (Matthew 4:7)
Read what just happened. A true promise of protection was used to invite an action God never commanded. The promise was real. The application was a test of God dressed as trust in God.
Faith does what God said. Presumption does what God did not say and expects Him to cover it. You are able to tell the difference, and you have the same written word Jesus answered with. That distinction is the whole of this article, and it is His Spirit rather than your own carefulness that will make you able to see it in your own case.
The hill they were told not to climb
There is an account in Numbers that is uncomfortable precisely because the people involved are trying to obey.
Israel refuses to enter the land, and God tells them that generation will not go in. Then they change their minds. They get up early, they confess they have sinned, and they say they will go up now. It reads like repentance.
Moses tells them plainly not to, because God is not with them in it. And they go anyway:
But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp. (Numbers 14:44)
The word Scripture uses is presumed. They were sincere. They were even doing the thing God had originally asked for. But the moment had passed and the word had changed, and doing the right action against the current word is not faith no matter how devout it feels.
You are able to tell an obedience from a determination, and God has never once hidden that difference from somebody who wanted to see it. Numbers 14:44 calls it presumption about people who were sincere and up early, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person clarity about their own motive.
That is the hard edge of this, and it cuts both directions. The man who will not act is not automatically faithful, and the man who acts boldly is not automatically bold in faith. The question is never how sure you feel. It is always what God actually said.
James on the calendar
Scripture applies this to something as ordinary as a business plan.
Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. (James 4:13-14)
James does not tell them to stop planning. Read the correction he actually gives:
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. (James 4:15)
The plan stays. The city stays, the year stays, the buying and selling stay. What changes is one clause: if the Lord will. Presumption is not ambition. It is ambition with the clause removed.
You are free to plan, and adding one clause has never once meant giving up the plan. James 4:15 keeps the city and the year and the buying and selling and changes only if the Lord will, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a person's ambition submitted without killing it.
And Jesus tells a builder to sit down and count the cost before laying a foundation, lest he be unable to finish and everyone mocks him (Luke 14:28-30). Counting is not unbelief. In the mouth of Jesus, counting is wisdom.
So test it, and understand that testing it is not doubting God.
Ask the plain questions. Where has God actually spoken on this, in His Word? Has He commanded it, or have I assumed it? Am I asking Him to bless a thing He told me to do, or asking Him to cover a thing I decided to do? Who is allowed to ask me a hard question about it, and what happened the last time somebody did?
A faith that cannot be examined is not a strong faith. It is an unexamined one, and the two are not the same thing. God is not offended by anybody's due diligence. He wrote a book full of it.
You are safe to examine this, and He has never once been threatened by an honest question about it. 2 Corinthians 13:5 commands a whole church to examine themselves and prove their own selves, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does that testing alongside a person rather than over them.
And hear the other side of this, because it is the side more people need. Refusing to move is not automatically safe. The men who would not go into the land were not being careful, they were being disobedient, and the years in the wilderness were the result. Trust that will not act when God has spoken is not humility, and action God never authorized is not courage.
You are able to look straight at what you believe, and it has never once needed your certainty to hold it up. What holds it is Him: Matthew 4:7 has Jesus answer a real promise with another written word, and the Holy Spirit who led Him into that wilderness is the one who shows a person which of the two they are standing in.
You have the same written word He answered with, and it has never once been kept out of reach of anybody. Matthew 4:4 and 4:7 both begin with it is written, and the Spirit of God is the one who brings the right sentence to mind in a moment a person cannot think straight in.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over what you believe is genuinely yours, delegated and never invented. Scripture says do not tempt the Lord your God, so speak to the excuse that has hardened into a conviction: you have standing to address it because He gave you His own written word to test it against. An ambassador carries the King's word and never his own policy, so say what God has said and leave the outcome to Him. Every line below is Matthew 4:7 and James 4:15 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not your volume, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Excuse that hardened into a conviction, you are named today and you are not faith. The Word of God says it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, and He gave me His own words so I would never have to guess which one I was standing in.
- Fear of finding out I was wrong, you are finished in the name of Jesus. The word says examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith, so I look straight at what I believe, because what holds me is God Himself and not how certain I have managed to sound.
- Father, You speak plainly and You wrote it down. I receive Your Word as the thing I test myself by, and I say gladly and out loud, if the Lord will.
Matthew 4:7
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