Dear Friend,

I hope you are having a blessed autumn so far. What a wonderful world our God has created that gives us all these beautiful and incredible changes in season! His power is truly amazing, friend. 

With the year winding to a close and the holiday months looming before us, you may be entering a stressful time in your life. Maybe you’re already in one. You might need healing for yourself or for someone you love. You might be facing financial or relational hardship. You might have emotions that are just ruling your behavior and you can’t figure out why. I want to encourage you that you are not helpless to these storms of life, because God does not leave us alone without any tools against the difficulties we face.

That’s why I want to talk to you today about faith. Faith is more than just believing that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. That’s our first step in faith, but we are called to go deeper than the first step. We are called to not just believe in God and His sacrifice but to act on it, to live lives that are rooted in faith, and this lifestyle becomes so important when we find ourselves in difficult situations.

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The best place to look for stories of faith is in the Bible, so I want to share some biblical examples with you. Oh, friend, these are some of my favorite stories. In every single one, we can see a faith that Jesus Himself was so proud of, and that’s why I picked these stories to show you what qualities you need to have unstoppable faith!

Faith is Persistent

The first thing we need to understand is that faith does not give up no matter what, and for this, I always love to talk about the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15.

Verse 22 tells us that she heard about Jesus, and she came running for His help, crying out to Him, “Oh, Lord, Son of David, my daughter is severely demon possessed.”

What you have to understand about this story is that in the past, the Canaanites were arch-enemies with Israel, so this woman probably didn’t have a great reputation with the Jews. With her background, they were probably judging her and trying to silence her, but she didn’t care. She kept crying out, screaming for His mercy and help, but the Bible says that He answered her not a word, and soon His disciples were saying, “She keeps calling after us. She’s a nuisance. Just send her away, Jesus.”

What a blow to this woman’s hope! Not only was Jesus ignoring her, but the disciples were saying to send her away. This was not what she was hoping for at all, yet she stayed there; she kept asking. How much faith must she have had, faith that overcame the cultural barriers between Jews and Canaanites, that overcame rejection from the disciples and seeming indifference from Jesus?

In verse 24, Jesus finally answered her:

But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Jesus is saying, “I’m not trying to ignore you, but I was not sent to you. This is not my place. My instructions from the Father say that I was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, not to you.”

She must have been absolutely devastated, but like I told you, this woman had persistent faith. Instead of going away dejected, she had the most incredible response:

Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”  —Matthew 15:25

After all this rejection, her response was to worship Jesus and ask Him once more. She humbled herself before Him and recognized who He was and what her place was beneath Him. After she worshiped, she prayed one short prayer. It wasn’t long or religious — it was just a very powerful three-word prayer: “Lord, help me.”

In verse 26, Jesus responded to her beautiful prayer with what looks like another rejection, but this faith-filled woman had just the right answer:

But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”  —Matthew 15:26-27

She recognized, “Yes, Lord, I’m a Canaanite woman, and according to the Jews, I am like a dog, but I know that you have the power to help me too if you choose. If you call healing ‘bread,’ then I know that crumbs are in bread, and if you call me ‘dog,’ then I know that the dogs are under the table, and they get crumbs. So Lord, I’m claiming those crumbs. I don’t need the whole loaf of bread. Just give me a little tiny crumb, and that crumb will have all the delivering power that my daughter needs.”

It didn’t look good for this woman and her daughter. It looked like Jesus was ignoring her and refusing to give her her miracle, but her faith was so strong, so persistent, that she kept calling on Him even when it seemed like He wasn’t listening. In the end, she got what she was looking for. The Bible tells us in verse 28:

Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

It’s so beautiful. Jesus was so attentive to this woman, and He saw her faith. He was not sent for the Canaanites, but He saw her faith, and it moved the Father’s heart to give her that miracle. If your faith is persistent in every obstacle, friend, it will carry you through the storm to your miracle just like that.

Faith is Focused

The second thing we need to remember is that our faith needs to have a goal, and we need to be laser-focused on that goal. We saw this already with the Canaanite woman. She had a goal, and that was to get healing for her daughter, and she never swayed from it. She wasn’t distracted by the obstacles in her way. She wasn’t trying to get more than she needed from Jesus. She was just focused on getting healing for her daughter, and we find another woman with that kind of focused faith in Mark 5 — the woman with the issue of blood.

This woman had a flow of blood for 12 years. Can you imagine how exhausted she was? It must have been so draining to live like that, and that wasn’t even the worst of her problem. In that time and culture, she would have been considered unclean, and if anybody sat where she sat or laid where she laid or even just touched her, they would have become unclean too. If she had a husband or children or even parents and siblings, none of them would have been able to touch her for 12 years!

So not only was she exhausted and sick, but she was a social outcast, and verse 26 tells us that she had spent all her money on all these different treatments and doctors, but she had only gotten worse. Can you imagine how discouraged she was?

Then one day, Jesus passed by, and this woman had an opportunity for healing, and she seized it with her laser-focused faith. She had only one goal in mind: touching the hem of Jesus’ garment.

There was a large crowd on the street around Jesus, and if anyone had seen this woman or noticed that she had touched them, they would have started screaming, “Unclean! Unclean!” so it was a step of faith just for her to leave her house, and some scholars say that she may have even been crawling on the ground to stay hidden among all the long robes. So there she was, dragging her sick, weak body that had been bleeding for 12 years across the ground, through the crowd, to get her miracle, the whole time saying, “If I can touch His garment, I’ll be healed.” She pulled herself a little further — “If I could just touch it.” She pulled herself through more legs and feet — “If I could just touch it.”

Now notice, she wasn’t saying, “If I could grab hold of Him. If I could stand in front of Him. If I could stop Him and explain the problem.” She was not thinking about how to explain herself or how the miracle would work — she was only focused on getting close enough to brush His garment with her fingertips. She was exhausted, but it didn’t matter. All these people were wondering what was at their feet, but it didn’t matter. She had her eyes on Jesus.

Finally, she saw the hem of His garment, and she kept crawling closer and closer until she touched it, and the Bible says that 12 years of blood flowing from her body were immediately and absolutely gone!

Jesus noticed that some power had left Him, so He started looking all around in the crowd for who had touched Him. This woman wasn’t expecting to be called out. She wasn’t expecting to be noticed. She was so focused on getting the miracle that she didn’t think about what would happen after, but she finally stood up in fear and trembling, and the Bible says she told Him everything, the whole story, and at the end, He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction” (Mark 5:34). Her faith — that laser-focused faith that didn’t even think about what she was going to do after she got healed — brought about her miracle. That’s what Jesus said.

Faith Has No Backup Plan

The last thing I want to tell you about faith is that it only has one option. We’ve seen this in the two women we just talked about. Both of them knew who her answer was. They weren’t trying to hold onto their problems or come up with a backup plan in case Jesus was too busy — they were trying to give their problems away to the only one who could fix it. When you’re acting in faith, you don’t have the room in your heart to start planning for the worst, to start wondering, “What if God doesn’t do this?” When you’re acting in faith, in accordance with His perfect and holy will, your only option is Him, just like we see in one of my favorite Bible stories in Mark 10.

“Now they came to Jericho. As He [Jesus] went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging.”  —Mark 10:46

Blind Bartimaeus probably started this day just like he did every other day. He got dressed in special clothes — clothes that gave him the right to beg for food — and he went from wherever it was that he stayed the night and made his way to his special corner to beg, just like he always did — blind, just like he always was. As he was sitting there, having a normal day, wearing his beggar’s clothes, Jesus walked by, and suddenly, Blind Bartemaeus knew that this was going to be like no other day in his life, and he cried out for the change that he wanted to see:

And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” —Mark 10:47

Just like the Canaanite woman, this blind man cried out for Jesus’ help and mercy, and the crowd started trying to quiet him down, but he just kept crying out. When Jesus heard him, He stopped and asked the crowd to call him over. They were so fickle, first trying to shut Blind Bartemeus up and then celebrating for him when Jesus called him, but that didn’t matter to Blind Bartimaeus. All he heard was that Jesus called him over.

Now, verse 50 is such an important part of this story:

And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus.

This garment, the one that identified him as a beggar, was so essential, because without it, Blind Bartimaeus didn’t have the right to beg for his livelihood. Why would he throw that aside? This was the most important thing he had, the thing that allowed him to sit there and receive money the only way he could!

But Blind Bartimaeus heard Jesus calling him, and he knew he wasn’t going to need that garment anymore. He’d been blind and had to beg for his food for so long, but starting right that moment, he knew his life was not going to be like that anymore, so he threw that backup plan away and came to Jesus. 

When Jesus asked Blind Bartemeaus what he wanted, he did not hesitate. He said, “I want my sight. And the Bible tells us, “Then Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road” (Mark 10:52).

Blind Bartimaeus acted in a faith that had no backup plan, no alternative. He had only one answer, and that was Jesus. He wasn’t going to even give himself the possibility of picking up that begging garment again, so he threw it away. Sometimes, friend, we’ve got to throw away the idea that we have other options and get rid of the illusion that anyone can help us but Jesus. We aren’t saved by good planning or financial security or even by other godly people who love us. God can use all those things to help us, but we can’t act like they are the things that will save us — only He can do that.

Your Faith has Healed You

Before I close this letter, I want to point out to you that in every single one of these stories, Jesus praised these people for their wonderful faith:

“O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.”
(in Matthew 15:28)

“Daughter, your faith has made you well.”
(in Mark 5:34)

“Go your way; your faith has made you well.”
(in Mark 10:52)

Do you see what Jesus isn’t saying? He’s not saying, “Oh, I’m giving you this miracle in My great mercy. My power will heal you or your child.” Instead He says, “Your faith.” Your faith is so precious to Him, friend. When you act with faith that is unstoppable — faith in Him alone that has one goal and will push through every obstacle to get to Him — you will open up the door to your miracle. God loves to heal us and carry us through the storms in our lives, but we have to put our full faith in Him if we want to see His full deliverance.

If you are in a difficult time of your life and you are struggling to act in unstoppable faith, I want you to contact our prayer team. You can call at 1.844.473.6637  or email denisesocial@renner.org, and a member of our team will be ready to pray with you through whatever is going on in your life.

I also want to invite you to my weekly program, TIME with Denise Renner, where I will be going into more depth on all these wonderful stories of faith that I got to tell you today. This program is live every Monday at 7 AM CT on both Facebook and YouTube, or on just Facebook Wednesdays at 12 PM CT. You can also find my teachings any time by visiting renner.org. I hope that you will join me this month as we dive deeper into the wonderful power of faith!

We are moving forward together,

Denise Renner