Beware of Unbelief

There are three types of unbelief: lack of knowledge, disobedience, and natural. Recognize the 3 types of unbelief in your life and change!

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me.

John 8:32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Only the truth you know can set you free.

Hebrews 4:2;6 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 6… they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief.
They could not plead innocence due to ignorance, because God had told them to go in and possess the land of Canaan. It was disobedience. They knew what God said, but they could not be persuaded to act upon it and were unwilling to allow the Word of God to govern their lives; a refusal to act upon knowledge.

Matthew 13:58 Jesus did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Mark 6:5-6 Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 Jesus marveled because of their unbelief. He went around the villages teaching.

Natural unbelief is simply believing what you see over what you read. Jesus responded with, “It is written.”

Matthew 17:19-20 They asked, “Why could we not cast them out?” Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief. For most certainly I tell you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

Mark 9:24 Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!”

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. (Without Him I can do nothing. John 15:5)

Mark 16:14 Afterward Jesus was revealed to the eleven themselves as they sat at the table, and He rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they didn’t believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.

Believing is an act of the will. We can act on the Word if we will. Disobedience is an unpersuadable attitude toward the Word. Thus, unbelief is either: (1) ignorance of the Word, or (2) unpersuadableness to act upon the Word, or (3) believing only in what you can hear, see, taste, touch, or feel over the Word.

Hebrews 3:12 Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God.

Mental agreement believes only what is seen or felt. This is one of the most subtle enemies there are to faith. It is so “religious.” One who only mentally agrees, will go so far as to say, “I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible.” They will say, “I am contending for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints,” yet they refuse to act on the Word.

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, if you have faith, and don’t doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you told this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it would be done.

Mark 11:23 For most certainly I tell you, whoever may tell this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is happening; he shall have whatever he says.

Receiving healing in our body is relatively easy. However, our mind (memory) and our emotional attachment to that illness requires a healing of the mind—a different mindset. We get so accustomed to feeling sick, thinking sick, and acting sick that it is only natural to behave sick. But this is where faith steps in and you refuse to accept it as true. This is not just mental assent it is choosing to act different than what the immediate circumstances dictate.

Luke 24:38 Jesus suddenly appeared to them. He said to them, “Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts?

John 16:1 Jesus said, “I have said these things to you so that you may not be in doubt.”

James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed.

You may say the Bible is true, but do act upon it? Faith is acting upon God’s Word. To declare that God’s Word is true — to say that God cannot and will not fail to help in the time of crisis — and then to turn to the world for help is unbelief. It opens the door to deception and defeat by the enemy. It is the refusing of God’s covenant and making an agreement with the world. (example of headaches)