"Consider Not" by Nancy Dufresne
When Jesus ministered to the sick, He said, “According to your faith be it unto you” (Matt. 9:29). Faith is simply believing what God says in His Word and acting like it’s true. Faith means acting on the Word!
Even if circumstances and situations around us tell us something different than what God says, we choose to still believe what God says about it. If our body and what we feel tell us something different than what God’s Word says, we still choose to believe what God says. If thoughts bombard our mind against what God says, we still choose to believe what He says.
Abraham’s faith pleased God, so we can look at what he did and know what we are to do to have faith that pleases God.
Romans 4:17-21 reads, “(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he CONSIDERED NOT his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”
God told Abraham that he was going to be the father of nations, but Abraham was childless and 90 years old. His body’s ability to produce a child was dead.
When Abraham’s body told him something different than what God said, he had a choice to make. He chose to believe what God told him rather than what his body told him. If we are going to receive healing and walk in health, we must choose right – we must believe what God’s Word says over what our body says.
Verse 19 reads, “And being not weak in faith, he CONSIDERED NOT his own body now dead.…”
How does someone weaken their faith? They consider what they ought not to consider. When our attention goes to and stays on the wrong thing, it weakens our faith. To keep our faith strong, we have to keep our attention on the right thing – on what God says. Where our attention goes affects our faith. Abraham protected the strength of his faith by keeping his attention off the wrong thing and keeping it on what God said.
To “consider not” means to not think about it, don’t touch it in our thought life – don’t turn it over in our thought life. We must discipline our thought life to not allow our mind to consider, entertain, or turn over wrong thoughts – thoughts against the Word.
We can’t keep wrong thoughts from coming to us, but we can refuse to entertain them – not turning them over and over in our mind. We can’t keep birds from flying over our head, but we can keep them from building a nest in our hair.
We are going to have to answer every circumstance, every symptom, and every thought that says something different than what God’s Word says – not just once – but every time the thought comes! When we answer wrong thoughts with what the Word says, it stops the movement of those thoughts around our head.
After we answer, then we are to continuously praise God for His Word coming to pass in our life.
“Consider not” doesn’t release us from exercising our faith. We must still release our faith, even though we refuse to focus our attention on opposing circumstances.
Abraham “considered not” his own body – he didn’t touch in his mind and in his thought life what his body told him. His body told him something, but he refused to focus or put his attention on that. Although he didn’t consider his body, he still released his faith – he believed what God said. Verse 18 tells us, “He believed according to what was spoken.” Faith holds to what God says, despite all opposition!
Abraham didn’t consider his own body, but he also didn’t consider the body of anyone else – including his own wife. “…He considered not his own body now dead…neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”
If we touch in our thought life the condition of someone else’s body, or why someone else failed to receive healing, it will weaken our faith. “Consider not” the body of another.
Lilian B. Yeomans, a teacher of divine healing, had previously been a medical doctor who God raised up off her death bed. She wrote, "Consider not – blessed words – an unfailing refuge from the fiery darts. Heavenly atmosphere where no germ or disease can survive for the fraction of a second. Consider not. Do not accord to the physical symptoms a passing thought. Refuse to take them into your calculations. If you consider your own body, paying attention to the symptoms, that is why they persist. As long as you consider them, they will persist."
If we are not to consider our body, what are we to consider? Consider the Word! Fill your thoughts, mouth, and heart with what God says.
Answer every thought that’s in opposition to the Word. Answer troubling thoughts, pain, and sickness with the Word. Walking in real victory means learning to “consider not” our body or what the enemy suggests and threatens us with.
If we believe we’re not healed because symptoms come, then we’re believing our body more than we’re believing God’s Word. Don’t believe anything more than you believe what God says!
It’s not our job “to not feel the test,” but it is our job not to change what we believe because of what we may feel or see. We are not to believe anything more than we believe the Word.
Yes, we may feel the test, but that feeling doesn’t mean our faith isn’t working or that the Word isn’t working.
As Sister Yeomans stated, “Consider not – blessed words – an unfailing refuge from the fiery darts. Heavenly atmosphere where no germ or disease can survive for the fraction of a second.” When fiery darts come against the mind, we are authorized to not consider them, to not be moved by them, and therefore, to be completely untroubled, living days of Heaven on earth.