How do we learn how to pray? How does faith really operate? Faith is supposed to be the simple, foundational way of coming into the kingdom of God. And yet, actually, what is faith, anyway?
Faith seems to become one of the great problems we may have when we come into a walk with God, this problem of learning how to believe and trust the Lord.
Well, I’ve learned that faith can move in a number of channels. Faith, hope, and love, those three, those tremendous great virtues that are so living and so divine. None of them are actually active forces until we activate them. For us they can become rather passive traits.
For instance, love remains rather underdeveloped and small until it’s exercised. When it’s exercised, it starts to grow. Hope is the same way. Many people will not let themselves hope for anything because they feel they will be disappointed. The fear within them will work against love, it will work against hope, it will work against faith.
Faith should not be a passive quality, but it should be an active thing. How do we make faith active? If we believe God’s Word, how do we make it active? Every one of us have a measure of faith. Now, how do we activate it?
For one thing, we ask. You can have faith in your heart, but until you actually frame that petition and you give it a definiteness, it has a vagueness.
You may have a lot of faith and a lot of trust. That may have removed fear out of your life. But it does not mean that anything specific is going to be yours until that faith is actually channeled by asking, and that petition has to be a definite thing that you ask God for.
Because we have the Spirit, because we love the Lord and we know He’s with us. Because every one of these promises of the Lord are based upon relationship to the Lord and His Word, how do we get it working, so that our walking with the Lord becomes amazing?
We are just told to ask. Do you remember what James said? Ye have not because ye ask not. We may have never made that faith a definite thing. If faith is aimed at nothing, it generally hits nothing. Faith has to draw a bead (the front sight of a gun) on the thing that you want. You aim. Faith has to have aim. It’s a tremendous force that is going to bring the blessing of the Lord, but it has to be beamed.
It’s like the rays of sunlight that shine, but they will not generate the powerful heat to burn, to consume, until those rays are focused. And when you bring the magnifying glass and you focus those rays, Oh, what a terrific heat can be generated by focusing those rays. Now, that’s exactly the way it is with faith.
We can go along with a tremendous moving of faith, and when we ask, God does it for us.
John 15 says, 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
PRAY OFFENSIVELY
You ask in faith without doubting in order for it to happen for you. Do you realize that most of you are praying on the defensive most of the time, Lord get this devil out of the way, I bind you in Jesus’ name.
We have not taken the aggressiveness in faith to make definite petitions. The ministry of deliverance is the smaller half of how our faith works and we’re neglecting the larger half, it’s not enough to preach and pray for deliverance. Because that puts people constantly praying to be delivered from a sickness, from an oppression, from a circumstance, from a problem. You’ll always be doing that if you pray that way. Five years from now, there’ll be another problem. There’ll be some other complaint. There’ll be some other situation.
But you must understand this, those problems will come and go. So, you just say, Lord, deliver us from evil. Give us this day our daily bread. The Lord’s prayer is just an amazing way to give you an attitude toward these things and keep praying for the will of God as it has been revealed to you, to enter that abundant life that has been promised to you.
The thing that is yours, believe for it, ask for it, and begin to focus and meditate on that promise. There are many things you and I know that God has for us.
Was it a gift of prophecy? Was it a gift of revelation? Was it a Word of wisdom? What was it that God said He would do for you? You all know that God has something for you. Begin to focus on it. Be definite. Begin to ask God the petition. You see, don’t be on the defensive.
Take the aggressive thing, to ask God the thing that you want. This begins the great role of faith. We first ask, until we get a personal word from God, or a scripture comes alive to us.
Faith comes by hearing God speak directly to you, then you know that you have faith, you have received an answer from God, it exists in the realm of the Spirit like a cloud over you. Then all you have to do is learn how to bring that promise down, to bring it into manifestation in the natural realm.
So, when God speaks, He imparts faith to our spirit, He imparts substance to our spirit; He imparts the image to our spirit.
Now there must be transference of that image in our spirit onto the screen of our mind. The life of God containing the faith of God flows out of heaven into our spirit and then into our soul, our mind, imagination and emotions.
Now we can begin to see the thing hoped for, or what we are believing for. It comes from our spirit, and it is pictured onto the screen of our mind, and it creates a vision of our heart.
That vision, that image, that picture, that vision of our heart is the visual evidence that the thing now exists. The visual evidence that the thing now is in existence, we can see it, it is in existence, it is not just a figment of the imagination, it has come from our spirit, it is substance, that image now on the inside is portrayed onto the screen of our mind. That image is a visual proof that the thing now exists, we see it. Then we have to now coordinate our spoken word with the vision of our heart. We have to speak it out!
The last stage is to speak it out, to confess with the mouth as well as believing with our heart. So, our tongue linked with the vision of our heart controls our life. It can control our world. Our tongue linked with the vision of our heart controls our world, it will come to pass in the natural realm, as a man thinks, so he will become. As we think we begin to speak. Out the abundance of the heart what happens? The mouth speaks. The mouth speaks out of what is in the heart.
Now in Mark 11:22 Jesus said this, these are the words of Jesus, we must listen to what He said. In the Greek it reads have the faith of God. Have an impartation of faith He said. The Greek says have the faith of God, not have faith in God. There is a difference. Have God’s faith imparted into your life. Then He said that whomsoever shall say unto this mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass he shall have whatsoever he says.
People say well I believe God, but I am having a problem with doubt. I really do believe what God says is true but I’m having a problem with doubt. Faith is something we have. Believing is something we do, once we have faith.
Faith is something we have, it is an impartation, it exists in our spirit. Believing is something we are responsible for, once we have faith. And if we believe and don’t doubt in our heart, we shall have what we say. We need to look at the root words. The Greek word for doubt simply means to separate, to oppose, to make to differ. Doubt is not doubt as we understand it. When He said if you don’t doubt in your heart, He was saying if you don’t have a differing vision, if you don’t have a different mental image, we can control that.
God did not give us faith as a defense against Satan. But he gave us faith to actually invade the realm of Satan and to take a prey. I believe that God has more things for us, but we were too much on the defensive, just praying for God to keep us from being defeated. What do you want? What definite thing could God do for you? Start asking Him for it. Begin to ask God for things. Once He shows you something, our asking becomes based upon relationship with the Lord, there comes an assurance that He’ll do it for us, we can feel the presence of God and the Holy Spirit will bring it to pass, the angels will hearken to the word of God spoken.
DO NOT JUST ASK ONCE
We do not just ask once we keep on asking. You are actually knocking, as it were, to see a door opened. You are knocking on heaven’s door. You are knocking in order for it to be opened to you. And in every instance, understand that the tense in the Greek shows a continued action.
Mat 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
The word ask is an imperative in the Greek, it means it is a command, and it is in the present tense, which means it is continuous.
When you read the word ask, it means ask without stopping asking. Ask and keep on asking is the literal meaning. And when it says knock, it means knock and keep on knocking. When it says seek, it means a continual seeking. Now, this shows the continuing application of faith.
The people saying, well, you ask once and it’s not faith to ask again. They are misconstruing the whole purpose of continued prayer. They are assuming that if they dare to ask again, that they didn’t believe the first time.
What I am saying is, if you believe the first time, you’ll keep on asking the second and third time. You are asking in faith with thanksgiving that God has heard you. It’s one thing to assume that God heard you, but you need to understand that faith is a force. It’s beamed on a thing.
There are many hindrances that keep prayers from being answered. The only way I can describe it, it’s not in the heart of the Father that He doesn’t want to answer your prayer, but there are many forces that work to hinder it.
What if Daniel had prayed once and said, well, God doesn’t want to hear me, so I give up? But 21 days after he first asked, and he was still fasting, and he was still crying out to God for 21 days without stopping. Talk about perseverance, there it was.
Here comes the angel who broke through, and he says, Oh, Daniel, beloved, we heard your prayer right away, but we ran into a little difficulty. On the way, the prince of the power of Persia came and we were stood there fighting for 21 days and finally Michael came and helped us, and we broke through and here’s the answer.
Was it worth it? Oh yes, he saw history written in advance in that vision. Amazing thing. We need to understand how fabulous that revelation was. No wonder the devil fought it for 21 days because he realized in the latter days he was going to be defeated and he didn’t want that to happen. He didn’t want Daneil or anybody to know about it. It was something about the final wind-up of this thing, as far as he was concerned, and he didn’t relish being exposed.
So, you see, these things that God is showing us sometimes are hindered. Remember how Paul said to the Romans, I sought to come to you once and again? You know, prayed for it, sought to do it. But Satan hindered me.
Now, if Satan has a capacity to hinder or to delay, remember, it’s only a temporary thing, but faith is that force that keeps pushing right through, until the answer comes. So that’s why you are to ask and keep on asking. Not that God is deaf or he didn’t hear you the first time, but it’s that assault of faith, and it’s a faith toward God, not crying every time as though he hadn’t heard you the first time, or that he didn’t hear you the second time, but that constant crying unto God, knowing that He heard you the first time, He heard you the second time, and you’re just leaning on the doorbell. You’re going to get a little faster service.
Now, everyone that asketh receiveth. The idea is this continued prayer. Matthew 7 speaks about this continual asking, the continual seeking, the continual knocking is assured every time there’ll be an answer.
Satan assaults you with only one thing in mind, he’s trying to hinder the answer just long enough for you to become discouraged and abandon your faith.
But if you’re sad, I say don’t be discouraged, stay with it because the Lord says, everyone that asketh and keeps on asking gets an answer. Everyone that seeks and keeps on seeking finds it. Everyone that knocks and keeps on knocking, the door is open.
God said that’s the truth, but you say well I’ve asked for a lot of things that didn’t happen. You didn’t ask long enough, stay with it, stay with it, go back and pick that petition up and say okay this time we’re going to fight it through, it is the good fight of faith. The enemy’s not going to stop the answer, we’re going to see this thing through, because there’s a promise we are standing on, God’s going to do it for us.
First, we see just the simple asking, focusing upon what is promised. Then we see the blessing of just sticking with that, continually asking and believing, but not asking as though we had not been heard, but asking with faith, knowing that our faith in its persistence, rejoicing in an answer, staying with it, is going to have the answer soon manifested. God’s going to do it.
Faith has a reality. By faith, the thing you seek has reality in the realm of the spirit before it has reality in the natural realm. That’s always the course. Things filter down from a reality in the spiritual realm down to a reality in the natural realm.
For instance, our redemption is the same way. We have redemption of our spirit. We have been born anew. God has quickened us, but we are waiting for the redemption of our bodies. We’re waiting for the immortality to overtake the natural. It comes in the plane of the spirit first, then it’s going to reach down to the natural.
So, everything God gives you first has its reality by believing God. When God first spoke it, it has substance in the realm of the Spirit. In the realm of the Spirit, it becomes a substance, and it’s only a matter of time that it becomes an actual, tangible thing in the natural realm too that you can see.
Luke 18:1 18 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,
We see the same idea is conveyed again. If it’s right to pray, it’s right to keep on praying, it’s wrong to stop praying. If it’s right to pray, if you stop praying, you’re going to faint. When it says faint, it means that you find yourself kind of giving up on the whole thing and losing strength. He said, there was in a city a judge who feared not God and regarded not man, and there was a widow in that city, and she came to him, saying, ‘Avenge me of my adversary.’ And he would not for a while. But afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming.’
Now the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge saith. Shall not God avenge His elect that cry to Him day and night? See, they cry to Him day and night, and yet He is longsuffering with them. Meaning they probably have a lot of things wrong with them. In other words, as you begin to pray, never think that God’s going to answer that prayer just because you’re more righteous than everybody else.
You see, you start out praying, looking to God, to deliver you out of it. And God may put up with a lot of things in you, maybe bear long with you. Nevertheless, he’s going to answer you. I say unto you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the son of man cometh, shall he find faith? The Greek has the definite article before it. “The faith,” when the son of man cometh will he find “the faith” upon the earth. It doesn’t actually read will he find faith, will he find “the faith.” Why does it say “the faith” because that’s the faith that prevails, that’s the faith of God.
This is the faith that God honors and fortifies with his very self, this continual coming to the Lord. Well, we’ve got to hear this because there are too many discrepancies to just tell you, well, ask God and it’s going to happen. You’ve got to know the mechanics of it and the way to keep going because we’re more concerned in some workable teaching than we are to just give you some theory that’ll bless you, but it won’t work.
We want this thing to work for you. Believe that you have received it and you shall have it. You’re going to ask, you’re going to keep on asking, but at the same time, you’re going to state that thing. It is a process that’s going on. There’s a continual application of that faith. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to ask God for that thing over and over again as though he had not given it. You’re going to ask as though he had already given it to you. And because of that, the great element is going to be thanking God for it.
God, I thank you that this thing that I have asked, I have received. And you keep rejoicing; it is not so much then a begging as it is stating a fact and reiterating the faith over and over again. And it comes, it actually is in the form of petition because whether you want to admit it or not, you’re bolstering up your own faith every time you do it. And you’re renewing that faith. You’re giving it some legs and some strength, and you’re feeding it, and you’re giving it body. That thanksgiving is building it up. That’s the way I would interpret it, because I don’t think that we come to the Lord and ask Him each time as though He hadn’t heard us the time before.
You see, this is one prayer that keeps expressing itself over and over and over again. Yet you have received the answer from the very moment your mouth was opened. You have focused upon a definite thing and claimed it, believed it, and then confessed it. But your faith keeps on expressing itself.
I think this prayer isn’t something mechanical like keeping playing the same record over and over again. I think it’s a constant moving of the Holy Spirit, and in my opinion, I think it’s the way that God gives form to the thing that is already laid up in store for us.
God has provided all things for us. To me, it’s like something laid up in store. It’s like a cloud up there. That cloud is just full of vapor and everything. But in order for it to be activated, you shoot a bolt of lightning in that thing. Wham, it starts raining. The rain coming out of it, it solidifies, takes form, and the precipitation falls. Some cases it might be hail, some cases it might be rain, or it might be snow. It depends upon the temperature and conditions. But the potential of it is all up there.
Now, the Lord has provided all things. His divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. I think what our faith does is it actually reaches up and the longer we’re just hanging on and believing without wavering at the thing, we are the ones that actually formulate and solidify the provision of God until it becomes a definite thing.
So, I’m of the opinion that God doesn’t usually do anything sovereignly. I think that same thing’s true of your healing. I think that God will heal you. But I don’t think God actually passes any special decrees or decisions in order to heal you. The word says, by his stripes ye were healed. And I think faith just reaches up and takes it, believes God for the restoration of an organ or something, and believes God and draws upon it. That’s why I think that these principles of prayer, worded very simply, will always work. They will always work.
Sometimes it takes a long time, the Apostle I came to San Antonio to study under had a severe nosebleed that could have killed him. He prayed for seven years believing he was healed, before it manifested in the natural. I heard several stories from Norvel Hayes, who I studied under referring to continuous prayer for long periods of time before it was manifested in the natural.
You believe it, and you just keep confessing it boldly. Your faith is actually drawing it out and giving it substance right there. And that faith can grow so strong that we can see the miracles done right before our eyes in such a fantastic way that the time element could be shortened to a split second.
But many, many, many times, we become slow to believe, and sometimes it takes a long time for it to take form.
Prayer should always be accompanied by thanksgiving because it’s a principle. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. You see, it’s a tremendous step of faith.
I know that the principle is right, but the application of it may be a little difficult for you at first, but if you keep going, it will manifest if you keep your heart right with God.
The first time that something comes that just didn’t work for you before, all of a sudden you break through one of those big answers you’ve been looking for, you’ll be hooked for life. You’ll never give it up. You’ll be thanking, asking, and it’ll be an exciting thing.
And that’s what our prayer life should be, that we get down and actually through our prayer life and our worship and our praise, we’re actually seeing solidified before us the tremendous things that we know were all provided for us in the cross. Hallelujah!.