When I suggested to my Word Faith friends that we ought to pray, like Jesus, "nevertheless, not my will but yours be done", all hell broke loose.

"No, that's a prayer of supplication" that was only relevant for that specific occasion. "No", we can't do that. We can't doubt, we must not waver. We must not be double-minded. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for."

So, they absolutely disagreed. And yet, they do live surrendered lives.

They strive to please God and do God's will. They just believe that God's will is always to heal, so we should not ask God—that would be like a soldier who has been given orders to heal the sick and save the lost, and then turning back and asking their commander what to do again.

But I think this is where the difference in approaches to God lies.

The surrendered approach to life

When we first come to God, we surrender our will to his. We effectively say, if not directly and explicitly say, that we are done with our life, and want to live to please God by doing what he wants us to do. We give up our will, and we strive to find out what his will is, to do that.

In fact, Jesus says that we should daily take up our cross (Luke 9:23). Daily, die to ourselves. Daily, give up our own rights, our own will, our own ways, and in effect, daily say "nevertheless, not my will but yours be done". This is our core being.

Then Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. In that model prayer we hear that we should be saying to God: let "your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). Your will. Not mine. There it is again. This time in our daily prayers. Lord, what is your will for me today? Let your will be done, not mine. This is our core model of prayer.

On yet another angle to the normal Christian life, we hear that Jesus always did only what the Father showed him (John 5:19). This speaks to our actions. We are to do only what the Father wants us to do. What we want to do is not to come into the equation. In other words, whatever our will is, bury that. It's dead. Just do God's will. This is our core model of action.

In general, what we are to do is to love God and love others. This sums up our core ethic. Now, the highest form of love is agape love, which is self-sacrificial love, as so wonderfully demonstrated to us by Jesus on the cross. This love from Jesus enables us to come to God by facilitating payment for our sin, and thus forgiveness and a right relationship with God. So loving others means that we ought to sacrifice our needs, desires and wants for others. We are to put their needs above ours. Their will above ours. Loving God is the same—we put his wants before ours. His will before ours. This is our core ethic.

So in our very core being, in our daily prayers and actions, and in our overall ethic, we are to surrender our will to God's. This is how Paul can describe our lives as being slaves to righteousness—to Christ (Romans 6).

Therefore, there is no possible way we can limit "nevertheless, not my will but yours be done", to just the cross, as it is in fact a cross-bearing life that we are to daily live. We would be limiting our very existence as Jesus-followers, if we were to limit this.

I actually believe my Word Faith friends would agree to this. And yet they still will probably vehemently disagree that you should say "if it be your will" in praying for healing.

So where is this push against asking about God's will coming from? I am making the argument that Word Faith doctrine has wrapped itself around New Age teaching (it certainly doesn't come from the Bible).

The hidden force of hypnotism

I need to introduce you to someone who has done a thorough investigation of hypnotism. His name is Nader Mikhaiel, and he details his findings in the book "Slaying in the Spirit: The telling Wonder. The Toronto Blessing". Now, while Mikhaiel carelessly uses his findings to write-off all charismatic expression as demonic, we can see that it's only certain expressions that are off. You certainly can't hypnotically raise people from the dead, for example! Nevertheless his findings are indeed "telling" for certain practices and experiences.

Mikhaiel noticed that every single phenomena associated with slaying in the spirit has its exact equivalent in hypnosis.Slaying in the Spirit, 46. So this is everything from weightlessness, heaviness, stiffness of the body (catalepsy), feelings of a force like electricity, changes in hearing, seeing a bright light, feeling drunk, laughter, suggestion, falling over, insensitivity to pain and more. Now correlation doesn't mean causation, but this is a surprising and curious parallel that needs to be explained.

Note that Westerners tend to think of hypnosis as being induced knowingly, and things happening to people by suggestion, but hypnotists often work without suggestion. This is just like when we pray for people—we don't suggest things to people, it just happens.

Of course, when Christians operate, they operate without knowing they use the same techniques and get the same results as hypnotists. But our ignorance doesn't excuse us.

How a person can be hypnotised

The stereotypical idea of hypnotism makes a mockery of the practice and helps us to laugh it off as not real.

However, the practice has been around for millenia, and doesn't necessarily involve suggestion to control people. In fact, with Eastern religion coming into vogue in the West, hypnotism for healing is becoming increasingly common. This speaks of something spiritual, and demonic.

First ingredient: focussed attention

While a hypnotist can use a shiny object to focus people's attention, the key ingredient for the practice is simply focussed attention. So a Lebanese dancing group on America's Got Talent, The Mayyas, used exotic dancing to literally hypnotise the viewers and judges. Apparently, it worked: they got a golden buzzer, allowing them to sail through to Hollywood itself. Meditation focuses attention by closing the eyes, stilling yourself, and repeating a word often. Word Faith preachers get people's attention through exotic stories of healings, miracles, and highly confident speaking. The more confident they are, the better results.

Second ingredient: dulling of senses

Another key ingredient is that they want to dull your senses. By putting the shiny object just above your eyes, they cause you to strain them to the maximum extent to watch it, and your eyes get heavy with weariness. A Word Faith preacher may exhort people not to think about what's happening with their mind, but just "believe". Close your eyes and just be open to receive. Up the music so you can't hear. They may say or insinuate something like, "don't trust your physical surroundings because what's happening in the spiritual realm is much more important".

Third ingredient: repetition

The next main ingredient is repetition. A swaying object back and forth; a word repeated over and over; a sight seen over and over; an expectation for healing repeated over and over. Any form of repetition will do.

The role of belief

This combination is powerful. A very assertive and highly charismatic person generally comes across as very believable, due to their confidence. These conditions are perfect for someone to be mesmerised—the word group coming about after the chief hypnotist Franz Mesmer.

It is not incidental that faith preachers underscore again and again the importance of believing and having faith: this produces a single-minded focus that at the same time teaches us to ignore other voices and physical senses.

Note well that who or what we are believing in or having faith in is almost always left out. That is deliberate (often without knowing why—there is no malice in the faith preachers). By simply saying that we should "believe", what this does is stops people from analysing what is being said. Bringing what is being said back to the Word stops the phenomena! It wards the individual against being hypnotised. You are not supposed to think! You are to drop your guard. This makes it easier to be convinced that your miracle is coming.

But it's not just a matter of being convinced. There is real spiritual power behind it, as countless thousands of people report. Once convinced, we open ourselves to being possessed by a demon. We allow it in, even as Christians. That's the importance of believing and receiving. I know that's a hard pill to swallow, so we don't want to jump to conclusions like this without some key evidences and more objective tests. We're going to examine faith, doubt, what Jesus did, apply the tests we've just learned, and more.

Why faith and not doubting matter so much to the Word Faith practitioner

When you're inducing a trance, it's important to not doubt, because doubt introduces a thought other than what you are supposed to be concentrating on. And single-minded concentration is one of the keys to inducing a trance. But doubt creates double-mindedness. There is the thought and another thought that says "maybe not". So now you no longer have a single fixation. (We will get into where the Bible talks about this—please hold on!)

This is why trancendental meditation focuses around repeating one word and hypnotists use shiny captivating objects. It helps produce a single train of thought.

Therefore, saying "if it is your will" introduces an alternative thought that breaks the concentration. There's now two possibilities: they get healed, or, it's not God's will for you to be healed. It disrupts your single-minded focus.

This is why people have noticed that you don't get 'healed' if you are double-minded, and therefore warn against saying "if it is your will".

This 'doubt' or double-mindedness is only an issue if you are trying to hypnotise someone (knowingly or unknowingly). In contrast, doubt presented no issue for Jesus.

Jesus healed even when people doubted or had no faith at all

There is an example of healing where a man doubted, but Jesus healed him anyway. This shows that Jesus' way of healing was not a hypnotic counterfeit, but godly.

Mark 9:14-29 tells of a man who said "I believe, help my unbelief!" whom Jesus helped anyway. The doubt of this man didn't interfere because the power was in Jesus to rebuke the evil spirit of this man's son—not in anyone's pure undoubting faith.

John 12:37-43 shows that Jesus could perform miracles in the face of unbelief, and indeed had to because that was prophesied.

Again, this shows that the power is in God, and has nothing to do with the faith of the recipient. He can do miracles in the face of no belief.

However, he can choose not to do miracles in front of scoffers, because it would do no good, and we see that in Matthew 16:4. Here, Jesus says "an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah."

John 5:1-9 tells of paralytic whom Jesus healed without any faith at all—he didn't even know who Jesus was (John 5:13)!

When you're inducing a trance, it's important to believe (to have faith), because our spirit opens up to other spirits when we believe. When we believe the Holy Spirit, we allow him to fill our lives. When we believe in the power of a witch doctor, or other person who may be a Christian but is acting under demonic power, we open ourselves up to being filled with a demonic spirit. That's what belief does: opens ourselves up to other spirits.

We see that in Jesus' warning to the healed paralytic: “Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.” (John 5:14, NET) Sinning invites demon oppression because you are effectively putting your trust in (believing) the lie of that sin. You are not resisting the devil, and so he or it is not fleeing.

However, the power is not in the belief (that's often the gateway though). The power is in the spirit. If God's spirit wants to heal, that's what going to happen, whether they believe or not.

But Jesus often only responded to people who had faith in him, because he wanted them to glorify God. He wanted it to be sign to point people to faith in God. To heal those who did not believe would have resulted in just more hate, and this would not be a sign. He had the power to heal those without faith, but it would not have been wise for him to do so (as we've seen in John 12:37-40).

We could add in the disciples' experiences too, but won't spend too much time on it. Paul's thorn, of course, is the most famous example (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Here we see that Paul was full of faith, pleading with God in prayer for God to take it away from him (12:8). God refused (12:9). So having incredible faith, performing miraculous healings, not doubting, and fully expectant that God was there for him—none of it made any difference. God had made up his mind. God's will was in the way.

Analysing common Sunday service practices

Faith preachers have come to understand that there are things you can do to create a better atmosphere for healings. To raise the faith of the group.

So, they want to create an atmosphere of expectation. Therefore, they may repeat such lines as "you are going to receive your miracle today!" "You will get your healing!"

They may ask the group, "Who believes God is going to breakthrough today?" and look for a hearty "Amen!" response.

They will use testimony's of past healings to cut through people's resistance and get them focussed.

When close to asking people to come up the front, they will want music playing, which only serves to heighten the emotions and reduce space for thinking.

Then, the hardest part is the first healing—but after that, it just flows. That's because people who see it are now fully convinced and focussed on that one thing. They open themselves up to receiving whatever it is that the preacher has. They essentially always fall down. This has come to being known as being 'slain in the Spirit'.

So, can we not compare that to Scripture, and to common hypnotic tactics? Surely we can.

Whereas being slain by a spirit may produce healing for a short time, but then consequently relapses (because it was a hypnotic deadening of pain receptors, for example), Jesus' healings lasted. (1. Test of nature)

Whereas being slain by a spirit often leaves a sick person sick, being touched by Jesus left a sick person healed. (2. Test of fruit)

Whereas being slain by a spirit often leaves a non-Christian a non-Christian, Jesus sternly told people to leave their life of sin. (2. Test of fruit)

Whereas Jesus commended faith in God, Word Faith practitioners encourage faith in the preacher to heal; in a touch from the preacher. (3. Test of who is glorified)

Whereas Jesus could heal without faith, Word Faith practitioners have to expend lots of time to build it. (5. Test of what the focus is)

Whereas Jesus never had to train catchers, Word Faith practitioners do. (6. Test of use of techniques)

Whereas Word Faith preachers require absolute faith without doubt, the Bible commends the skepticism of the Bereans to first ground Paul's words in the Bible. (7. Test of openness to humility)

Whereas Word Faith preachers talk about revival in terms of healings and miracles, John (in 1 John) grounds true faith in terms of marked change in behaviour, desire, and love for the things of God. (8. Tests of 1 John)

Now this is just an example of how to apply the tests we've just learned, and your experience may be quite different. But there are some rather obvious experiences to steer clear of, once we can discern them.

I love, for example, the method of John Wesley, who, knowing the propensity of people's emotions to cloud their judgment, counseled people who wanted Jesus for the first time to come back to him at 6am in the morning at his office! Away from the hype and noise and excitement! Without a chance for hypnotic influence! And people truly hungry for God came, because they were moved by the Spirit of God, convicted of their sin. That he was willing to do this shows us a clear way forward that certain preachers will never countenance, because it would be a death-knell to their ministry. This is one practical way of steering clear of anything not of God. (5. Test of what you focus on)

Notice too, that when a person is really gripped by God, you don't have to expend huge effort following them up. They come because the Holy Spirit has them already. So if you're finding it hard to follow people up, did they really get a touch from God? (2. Test of fruit—that lasts)

Why believing and not analysing what's happening is important to Word Faith adherents

Why do faith preachers ask us to 'just believe', and not think about it?

Remember that when you are inducing a trance, the core ingredients are focus, repetition and a dulling of the sense. So the classic shiny object acts as a focus point; the swinging of this object as the repetition; and its positioning just above the eyes acts to strain the eyes to the point of drowsiness.

When we 'just believe', we are asked to suspend our judgment. This focuses the person on the single purpose of obtaining a miracle. We are to calm our minds of any questions we have that produce opposing thoughts, and disrupt our single-mindedness. We are also often asked to close our eyes—removing our sight.

If a person was to come up the front to receive with an attitude of skepticism, their senses would be on full alert and not dulled. They would not be single-minded, and they would break any repetition due to constant raising of questions and activity in the mind.

Now, the Word Faith preacher is typically wholly ignorant of hypnotic practice and results—that their practice and results are one and the same. Nevertheless, they've picked up these techniques from the same devilish origin.

This is not to say everyone is wrong or the whole thing is bunkum. Most Christians in this, if not all, are passionate for Jesus. I would just say they are deceived. It's also interesting to note that many of them do what the Bible says, and what the Word Faith preachers say. There is a syncretism going on here. So a lot of what I see is a mix of genuine miracles occurring as well as false ones.

Now, to make this sort of analysis is dangerous to two primary things. We've talked about how analysing or doubting is a danger to the single-mindedness they are trying to achieve. It is also dangerous to speak negative words. That's because they adhere to the New Age practice known as The Secret or The Law of Attraction, also even more widely known as karma. What you sow or speak is what you reap. So speak negatively, and you'll get negative things back. Speak positively, and you'll positive things back.

This unfortunately makes people unable or at least unwilling to critique what's going on. That might be negative and stop all this good fruit from happening—they've been in this long enough to know how much doubt ruins the show (circus, charade). It might be going against the Spirit. But this aversion to negativity will only serve to dull our minds from discerning whether or not this is demonic. That's just where a devil would want you. Not discerning. Not taking it back to the Bible.

If you don't ask the question, "is this from God?", you won't know the answer. By default, you'll just be carried along with everyone else, tossed around by every wind of doctrine.

In contrast, those who ask questions are grounded and stable, because they are not moved in the face of new phenomena. They ask questions and probe and inquire, and, although slow to change, their wisdom is unmatched when they do make a decision.

But the best sort of questions send you wide, looking into worldviews, bias, individual verses of the Bible as well as the wider biblical and systematic theologies, what other people have said—both for and against—and further. This is not belief, it's skepticism. Healthy skepticism, like how the Berean's received Paul and heard from him, but then went back to the Word of God to check that what he was saying was really what Scripture was saying (Acts 17:11).

Now this sort of stance is not something that is conducive to believing, receiving, focusing on one thing, dulling the senses, or repetition. But it is in fact commended in the Bible (as well as the Acts passage, also consider the "get wisdom" passages in Proverbs; consider how John teaches us to "test the spirits" in 1 John; consider how Jesus warns us against false prophets, and the need to test their fruit, Matthew 7:15-23).

In summary, grounding in the Word through analysis is true faith, and is the opposite of 'just believing' without thinking about what's going on.

What is dangerous about doubting?

Here James is talking about double-mindedness in faith: the person is not sure whether to trust God or to trust someone else. That's the cause of instability. They're on the edge of faith in God itself.

If it were a matter of trying to focus on your faithful request and not doubting, putting aside all questions and negativity, this is not going to make you more stable. In fact, the most unstable Christians I know are Word Faith supporters. They go from doctrine to doctrine, technique to technique, each year. So, being the very people who try the hardest not to doubt, and exercise their faith—and they do believe for extraordinary things to their credit—you might expect them to be the most stable. But that's only if this passage and others like it are talking about faith and doubt in this New Age hypnotic way.

Instead, those who "will [not] receive anything from the Lord" are clearly double-minded about even believing God in the first place. They are not your regular Christian.

Note well, too, that James is asking the Christian to "ask God", rather than confess positively that they have wisdom, or some such technique. God is the source of all wisdom. And therein lies the Word Faith double-mindedness. On the one hand, the Bible continually encourages us to come directly to God to make our requests; but on the other hand, Word Faith adherents are confused and deceived by these New Age concepts that say:

• they should not ask for God's will;

• they should not ask God but command;

• they should not come to God but confess positively; and,

• they should not judge (which would primarily be done by grounding in the Word)

This is what makes them unstable. They take into their own hands what is God's prerogative, and then when one technique doesn't work, they have to switch to another. So we get our blessing by praying the prayer of Jabez ten times a day. And then after recognising that doesn't work, it's onto decreeing blessing over your life. And then it's positive thinking. Then it's specific 'powerful' prayers. Then it's confessing promises over yourself. Then it's the courts of heaven. And on and on it goes.

Furthermore, this is coupled with a soft anti-intellectualism when they push the idea that we should not analyse or think too much about weird phenomena or what God is doing. That we ought not to judge. Anyone, anytime. It is highly concerning that very little if any study of Scripture occurs. They'll read Scripture, but they won't study it. The way that they get an answer on the meaning of a text is by asking the Spirit, or hearing from others. This ends up producing circular reasoning that is not grounded in Scripture. This too contributes greatly to instability.

This produces double-mindedness because they are constantly flipping from directly coming to God to trusting in their own power and techniques they've learned. They know, because they are Christian, that God has the power. But they think, because they have been taught, that they now wield that power as they will. Isn't this a double-mindedness?

The most mature will admit that the power all comes from God, and their relationship with God is what therefore matters—not technique. But, like how we persist with our 90 minute services that are dominated by a single person rather than a Body, what we are used to lingers on. Old habits die hard.

On the contrary, I love the powerful simplicity of what Jesus originally told his disciples in coming to God directly, without fanfare, without many or flowery words, and certainly without technique, as if God can be manipulated.

The people who pray this way certainly cannot be described as double-minded and unstable, but it's uncanny how much that description matches those who think along Word Faith lines.

So therefore, when Jesus says a similar thing, what can we say of it?

In the Word Faith religion, this is interpreted as being able to visualise something in your mind, or verbalise something that you want, command it to come into being or happen, and if you believe that it will happen according to what you said, God will answer and make it happen for you. Thus, it centres on your single-minded belief that it will happen, without doubt. Furthermore, if it doesn't happen, that probably means that you don't have enough faith, or that you doubted that God could do it.

I think we should all sense quite clearly that this passage doesn't give us carte blanche access to do anything that we want in this fashion. It's out of character with the whole Bible. That's because it's straight from the New Age textbook again: the Law of Attraction. Whatever you ask God, or the Universe, that's the vibrational force you are putting out, so you will get it back.

To move to a different perspective, we only have to look at what Jesus said when he says "and it will be done for them" (v23). God will do it for them. It wasn't the power of their words, or their belief. Rather, it was the power of God, acting out of his own will.

So, it all makes sense when we put it in the context of acting on what God has said to you. We don't have the ability to just walk on water whenever we want. Peter asks Jesus first to tell him to come out onto the water (Matthew 14:28-29). We don't have the ability to just preach and save whoever we're talking to. We follow the Spirit to whom the Spirit is convicting and drawing. Jesus himself didn't have the ability to just do whatever he wanted. He prayed "nevertheless not my will but yours be done", and always only did what the Father showed him to do. But what the Father showed him to do was what the Father empowered him to do. (See also the concept of vicarious power and our ambassadorship, in the next article in the series.)

So we find the following principle: whatever God wants us to do, that is what God will give us ultimate power to do. It will happen, should we have faith enough in God's plan for us and go and do it. And that is what Jesus is saying here: whatever God has asked you to do, believe it, and walk in it, and it will happen.

This of course is embedded in Jesus' model prayer: we pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. This means that when we hear God's answer as to what he wants done, he gives us the power also to do it. So believe it and run with it! That should give us great courage.

It's been said differently with great impact for me: "if it's God's will, it's God's bill!" That's the true 'prosperity' gospel, if there ever was one: that God will provide for what he wants done.

But the idea that we can decide what we want to do, and just will it into being is preposterous—it's straight out of the occult New Age textbook. You would only come to that conclusion if you had a New Age worldview, and not a biblical worldview. (See 02: The New Age Connection for more about the worldview differences.)

What true faith and belief look like, with a healthy dose of doubt

I love doubt, because it enables me to consider both sides of an argument with less bias. It enables me to question long-held practices or beliefs, and re-ground them in the Word, refreshing their slow drift away from the original intent of the practice, or the long-forgotten underlying principles.

In the context of healing, doubt enables me to test the spirits and warn people of dangerous practices, while encouraging spaces to test new (or long-forgotten) godly practices.

Of course, doubt can turn into unbelief, if that's all we do. Unbelief of one practice or many, or of one doctrine or many. It's not a whole way-of-life so that we become, in our whole being, a skeptic. It's one tool that we use at appropriate times.

We also need to look for the positive, towards a hoped for future. We need a goal to look forward to, and push ourselves towards. This is what we believe in, or have faith for.

Now, on the one hand Word Faith practitioners will believe for healing, and that's all they focus on, repetitively confess, and have single-mindedness for. This is an expression of faith or belief. But true faith as the Bible presents it points in a different direction to the Word of Faith religion.

We talked earlier about surrender. Surrender runs through our very core being, in our daily prayers and in our actions. All of who we are should be directed towards a surrender of our will to God's.

When we first come to God, we come in repentance, surrendering ourselves to God. Looking negatively, we say that we turned away or repented from our sins. Looking positively, we can also say that we turned to God in faith. We put our full trust in God.

Similarly, when we come to God in prayer, we are effectively saying that we cannot do this part of our lives without God. We surrender our efforts to doing things God's way, or even to pleading for a miracle because we simply can't do anything at all. This is putting our faith in God—his ways and his efforts.

So to say that we need to have faith and not doubt to get your miracle is preposterous! Is it our effort, our faith, that is doing the work? Are we not giving up on our effort? Is it our amount of faith that will win the day, or God's ability? Is our doubt really going to stop the sovereign and Almighty God from acting, as Christians?

This is why Jesus said you only need to have the faith of a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20)—because it's not about the size of your ability, or the size of your faith, but the size of who you have faith in.

Jesus commended people's faith because they had faith in him, and God was glorified. Faith is not a matter of size but a matter of direction. Who or what are you having faith in?

On the one hand I see a lot of Word Faith practitioners running to one big name and then another, in hope of a miracle. On the other hand, I see people run to the Big Name, in hope of a miracle—God. One runs to people, phenomena and for self; the other runs to God, the unspectacular, and the secret place. On the one hand I see Word Faith doctrine saying 'don't ask for God's will', 'don't analyse it' (by trusting in the Word), and 'don't ask God—command healing'. On the other hand, I see people coming to God, hungry for God's Word, and asking God. One seeks techniques to manipulate reality, the other gives up on their abilities to ask God to be their reality.

It seems fairly clear that pure Word Faith doctrine is talking about putting your faith in something other than God. Once again, I must say that most people I know believe in both the Bible and Word Faith doctrine, as a syncretist belief. So they do in fact place their faith in God. But they'll also turn to this other faith at the same time. And that's harming them, and others.

I hope and pray that by honing our understanding, from the Word, about faith, belief, trust and doubt, that we can see more clearly.