Faith is an important element of prayer. This daily devotional looks at how faith strengthens our prayers.
Nuggets
- God will always hear our prayers when we have faith in Him.
Devotions in the Conditions of Power in Prayer series
Spurgeon told us the conditions and essentials that are needed to be met in order to access God’s power when we pray. The essentials are having child-like obedience, reverence, trust, love, ways, and spirit.
Why are these essentials important? Spurgeon wrote, “If they be in us and abound, our prayers cannot be barren or unprofitable.”
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Let’s look at the first of these in this devotion – faith.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
Let's Put It into Context #2
Prayer is a two-way communication with God in which we pour out our soul to Him.
The Universality of Faith
“And Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’” (Mk. 11: 22-24 ESV)
God will always hear our prayers when we have faith in Him.
We have to know in Whose Name we pray. Spurgeon said, “If we can plead in faith the name and blood of Jesus, we must obtain answers of peace.”
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If we call on the name of Jesus and ask that His blood cover our sins, we do so because of our faith in Him. Faith is a gift from God that enhances the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives and distinguishes us from others.
The do-not-understand part can trip up some who are searching for God. We can’t let it. We need to respond as the Hall of Famers did when faced with what Richardson called the unknown, unlikely, and untried.
- “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Heb. 11: 7 ESV)
- “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb. 11: 17-19 ESV)
- “By faith [Moses] kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them” (Heb. 11: 28 ESV)
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What that tells me is we have to have unlimited faith — not in quantity but in quality.
If the faith isn’t going to be there, neither will the answer to our prayers. If it is there, we can ask the seemingly impossible if we are asking in God’s Will.
God will move the mountains if He has it in our plans for those mountains to be moved. They won’t if He doesn’t.
Worried about how hard the mountains will be to move and our inability to have enough faith to move them? Think God will never put that type of mountain relocation in your plan?
Petter said think again. He wrote, “Such great and difficult works may a Christian be called by God to perform: yea, every Christian is actually called by God to the performance of such hard and difficult works, so soon as he is called to believe and to be a Christian — e.g., a Christian is called to deny himself, and to take up his cross and follow Christ: which are most difficult works, impossible to nature and contrary to it.”
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It all comes back to obedience. We are to believe that nothing is impossible for God (Mt. 26: 9).
What we have to watch is to make sure the two are hooked together — prayer and faith. Spurgeon reminded us that prayer is the power that drives this car. He and Whitfield listed some things that made it possible.
- Specific, focused requests
- Consistent requests
- No doubt
- Belief before seeing
- Keep within the Will of God
Resources
We have to keep our prayers totally focused on God.
Making the Connections
I love what Spurgeon said. He wrote, “Amend your prayers from this time forth. Look on prayer no longer as a romantic fiction or an arduous duty, but as a true power and a real pleasure. When philosophers discover some latent power they delight to put it in action. Test the bounty of the Eternal. Take to Him all your petitions and wants, and see if He does not honour you. Try whether, if you believe Him, He will not fulfil His promise, and richly bless you with the anointing oil of His Spirit, by which you will be strong in prayer.”
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Our prayer life can’t get stale. God doesn’t want it to be ritualistic and rote.
Our prayers need to be genuine and sincere.
How Do We Apply This?
- Just pray.
- Pray with trust.
- Evaluate unanswered prayers to determine where we are lacking.
- Don’t doubt.
Resource
Father God. We have put our faith in You. Help us to grow it even more. Show us where we are lacking. Amen.
What do you think?
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