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THE PRAYER OF FAITH - Pete Plitt

I received a call late one evening from a concerned grandmother quite anxious about her grandson having not checked in. She’s a godly woman of faith, but was letting worry get the better of her. She acknowledged that God was watching over him and his angels were on duty, "but. . . ." As I listened, I realized that she was saying pretty much what many parents or grands says when in a similar situation. "We’re not supposed to worry, but we’re just human." "I know he’s ok, but he was with some pretty rough guys." "Sure he’s fine, but I just wish he would call." I told her I understood how she felt, but then gently mentioned that I was unfamiliar with any place that Jesus saw His disciples fail in the faith arena and then told them, "Oh, it’s ok, you’re only human." Expectations in God’s world of faith are with "nothing doubting" and "no excuses."

I told her that when I prayed for absolute safety over my children, it was no longer a topic open for debate. It was non-negotiable and not subject to circumstances or conditions. No, I’m not super-Christian, but I am expecting exactly what was already provided by my Provider and I have absolute confidence in Him. Once their safety was forever established, is God now inept because of the lateness of the hour, or the crowd his stuck with at work, or the lack of a phone call? It’s not wrong to call around to check in, but it is wrong to lose your peace, fretting the night away. By the way, the reason this wonderful grandparent called me is because her grandson just happens to be my son. I may not have "arrived" in all of this faith stuff, but similar to Paul when he said he had not "apprehended" all mysteries yet, what he did do was press for the mark of the prize of the high calling. To walk in faith in all areas of life is an acquired taste, granted, but we must press to the place of no excuses, just correct focus.

We are all products of what we've been taught and have embraced. On the down side, there a creature spreading multi-faceted deceptions that can actually have one in bondage AND ignorantly fighting for the right to stay there. As it has been said, "It’s not deception if you know you’re being deceived." Matthew 6:23b says it this way, "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" Or, if your "light" [what you’ve accepted as truth] is actually "darkness" [a doctrine of devils], your darkness is huge because you accepted the accuracy of this so called "truth" in good faith and never intended to be in error. That’s what makes it great or deep darkness. It’s that "filthiness of the spirit" that Paul speaks to in II Corinthians 7:1. We pretty much know what filthiness of the flesh is, but what is filth to our spirits? Any doctrine that dirties our new nature. It’s that fine line thought and emotion process between faith and fear, or even faith and presumption.

We as humans all have essentially the same ability to succeed or fail. No one has a special standing or "favor" with the Father over another. He is not a respecter of persons. He has made access to His throne the same for everyone - through the blood and cross. Once accessed, the rest is up to us, that is, to draw near to Him [James 4:8], to study to show ourselves approved [2 Timothy 2:15], to build up ourselves in our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost [Jude 1:20], to purge ourselves from the old leaven [1 Corinthians 5:7], and the such. Similar scriptures to get our minds renewed to His way of thinking are endless, none of which, however, are to "move" God. He's not the one that's stuck. Reading and doing the Word is to get us unstuck, to liberate our minds from the bondage of strongholds that usually have us "hoping & praying" more out of fear and anxiety than out of tenacious, spitting in the devil's face, having done all to stand, STAND!!!, kind of faith. God doesn't hear prayers, He hears prays of FAITH! He can't answer fear, doubt and unbelief now anymore than Jesus could in His own home town where those very elements shut Him down.

Our doing well is His idea. I Timothy 2:4 says, "Who [God] will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." The word "saved" in the Greek is sozo and means: save, deliver, protect, heal, preserve, do well, be or make whole. The work of His cross truly is a finished work and sets the captive free; spirit, soul and body. His promises are more real and factual than the realities we can see, touch or hear around us. Because there have been times when we didn't get Jesus kind of results, God’s Sovereignty or timing may get blamed. Sure God is Sovereign. He figured out how to be supremely and ultimately in control of everything, and yet give us the precious gift called our will, a gift that He has chosen to not trespass, even if it means our own demise. We can chose to go straight to hell if we are so bent. He is Sovereign in that He offers only one way to His kind of eternity, and no other. We may get to choose, but He dictates the only choice that works. He set it up where choice and predestination coexist. He was Sovereign when he created all things without any help from us. He is Sovereign in that He is not restricted by His own creation, in this case, time. We have a tomorrow, He does not, so our freedom to choose our next step has already happened on His calendar, thus predestination. He is in the "now" at every point on the time line, as well as being outside of time itself. When God chose Jacob over Esau, He had already seen Esau’s heart, selling out his birthright for a meal.

When it comes to God’s promises, the salvation of the cross, His timing is NOW! Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." 2Corinthians 6:2b "behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Again, the lesson here is to protect ourselves from the enemies input that God must provide something more. Romans 10:6-9 tells us NOT to try to get Jesus to come back down out of heaven, or to be raised AGAIN from the dead, but to realize that the word of faith is in our mouth and heart, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath [past tense] raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." As in I Timothy 2:4, the Greek word for "saved" here is also sozo. The work on God’s end is complete. We need to stop asking for phase two.

Besides, it's not about the Almighty. He's not broken or confused. It's about looking to God’s Word to get our thinking fixed. For instance, in Romans 4:19-21, we learn of faith from Abraham's perspective. "And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform." When one "considers not" the doctor’s death sentence or screaming emotional pain, when one staggers not at the promise of abundant life [health, safety, provision] through unbelief, but is FULLY PERSUADED that God's promise of long life and peace is a done deal and that none of the pressure to the contrary has credibility, then the process of mind renewal moves us ever closer to unyielding God kind of results.

In Job 1-3, we see a good example of tainted trust. Job's sons are having some parties. Job makes sacrifices for each of them the next morning saying, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." It’s important to recognize that sometimes, even when we are going through the proper motions, that our motivations may be askew. The devil told God that He had a hedge around Job, but look at what Job finally realized in 3:25-26, "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came." When Job's sacrifices went from faith based to fear based, it knocked a hole in Job's hedge. Our proper confession [good seed sown] is certainly an integral part of faith, but too often becomes a substitute for faith. We’ve all been there, where our statements of faith are full of anxiety or are artificially forced, but the rehearsal of Bible verses is to mature us to a point of rest and full confidence [being fully persuaded]. Speaking correct words are not an end all, be all, alone. Words are what, over time, shape what is around us. That is the key to correct confession, to end up with the right fruit because we sowed the right seed.

We can hedge our family about through the prayer of faith, or turn that hedge into a sieve though hopin' and a prayin' in fear like Job. The enemy works hard at trying to put a question mark at the end of our prayers of faith. "Hath God said, NO weapon formed against you will prosper?" Then he tries to qualify our faith with circumstances or conditions. You know the drill. What if this and what if that, as if God’s promises get lost on their way because of some circumstance. Sure we do our parental part like, "Boy, don’t play in traffic," or "Girl, don’t walk down dark allies," but once we’ve done all that we could do, we need to know with absolute certainty that our baby’s angel’s are on watch and that, "no weapon formed against you [them] shall proper," Isaiah 54:17. We can never go wrong with Psalms 91, like verse 7 - "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." He gave us the responsibility, and the privilege, to speak to the mountain, not ask Him to. Then we are to honor Him by taking Him at His Word.

The Prayer of Faith, where nothing is impossible to them that believe, is self defined by our very designation - Believer. The world of God’s miraculous, be that safety for the kids, paying the bills, or raising the dead, is the eternal and the true reality. Begin to shape the visible, temporary world around you from God’s vantage point. Introduce the hurting to prayer that changes circumstances. Do not change your belief and prayers to the shape of your circumstances, but renew your mind and your heart to confirm to God's mind and his circumstances.

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