What is the "hearing of faith?"

Believers, Galatians 3:5 says "Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—"

But what is this "hearing of faith?" What did the people who received from our Saviour and experienced His miracles when He walked the earth as a Man hear about Him that made them flock to Him with the confident expectation that He would heal them, unlike many in the church today who feel that they need to be sinless, fast or sow a seed before they can receive from our heavenly Father who gives us all things freely with Christ?

It definitely was not the Law of Moses (including Ten Commandments) which they being Jews were brought up with. The woman with the issue of blood would not have dared to approach our Saviour in her unclean condition if what she heard about Him was of the Law. The Law said she should be stoned to death for mingling with the crowd in her condition! The lame, the sick, the blind, the hungry, the unclean lepers and the oppressed all came in droves to hear and be healed by Him without first doing righteous things and with nothing in their hands. Our Lord never asked them which commandment they had broken before healing ALL of them.

Believers, what they heard was that this Man Jesus was healing and delivering ALL WHO CAME TO HIM without asking if they obeyed the Ten Commandments or not; without asking if they sinned or not. Without asking them to "sow a seed" before blessing them. What they heard was GRACE - God's undeserved, unmerited favour!

Those who received from our Saviour back then did not have to be a certain way, do certain things or bring offerings before He healed them! He never asked anyone of them if they had quarrelled with their spouse or sinned or broken any law. He healed freely with no questions asked. All you had to be to be healed by him was be sick and want to be healed by Him! He is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is God's goodness that leads to repentance.

God supplies us with His Spirit and works miracles (including healing, deliverance, protection, provision, Grace to "Go and sin no more," every miracle Christ did and still does!) among us by the hearing of faith, and not because we kept the Law, did good things, fasted or grovelled in order to get right with Him or receive from Him. Wonderful as these things are, they cannot save. We don't get good to get Christ; we get Christ to get good. In fact, Galatians 5:4 says "For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

Romans 8:32 says "He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Our heavenly Father gives us all things freely with Christ.

The law is not of faith. Faith cannot come by hearing the law; and it takes the hearing of faith to enjoy God's supply of the Spirit and experience His miracles.

The woman with the issue of blood had done her best to get healed with no success. But her encounter with Christ changed her life forever. She went to Him in her unclean state, empty of works, with no fasting, no seed, no law, nothing but her believing what she heard about Jesus: "He will heal you freely, with no terms and conditions attached." 

If a sharp Pharisee had noticed her in the crowd, she would have been stoned to death. But she had her encounter Christ and was never the same again. She was delivered of the very thing that made her a pariah in Israel; the very thing that made her unclean; the very thing that disqualified her from coming into His presence to receive from Him.

What is your own "issue of blood" today? Is it not loving God, porn addiction, fear, worry, adultery, sickness, inferiority/superiority complex, rudeness, fornication, lack, poverty, envy, discontentment, barrenness, a hot temper, uncontrollable anger, disease, drug addiction, depression, stress or even double-mindedness about "what these grace people are saying?" Take everything to our Saviour today. No need to clean yourself before He gives you His own blood-bought gift of righteousness. You can't even because our own righteousnesses with which we clean ourselves are like menstrual rags according to Isaiah. No one can be made righteous in God's sight by doing what the law commands according to Romans 3:20.

Like the woman with the issue of blood, come to Him as you are and He will make you clean. He will give you His Shalom (Hebrew word meaning peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility)

Believe Right and you will Live Right.