THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH – Part II

From The Heart

Publish date: 03/25/2012

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.  1 John 5:14-15 NKJV

You cannot attach your faith to anything that God hasn’t already promised you. When you do attach your faith to God’s promise and you pray in faith, then you will receive all the blessings of His will and His promise.

If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him. 6 Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. 7 For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything [he asks for] from the Lord, 8 [For being as he is] a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, decides].
  James 1:5-8 AMP

If God is a giving God, who gives to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, then why don’t people have all that they need from Him? Obviously God is not our problem!  God gives to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly! The key that opens the door to God’s blessing of wisdom, or anything we ask God for, is to ask in faith. If you are wavering, hesitating, and doubting – you are double-minded. When you are double-minded, you are not operating in faith. Faith is single-minded and laser-focused! Faith is resolute – faith’s mind is made up. If you ask in faith – you’ll receive from God what you ask Him for, but if you do not ask in faith, then you will not receive what you’ve asked for. The key is FAITH!
    
And Jesus answered them, Truly I say to you, if you have faith (a firm relying trust) and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, it will be done. 22 And whatever you ask for in prayer, having faith and [really] believing, you will receive.  Matthew 21:21-22 AMP

Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”  Mark 9:23 NKJV

So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.  23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.  24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. 
Mark 11:22-24 NKJV

These scriptures clearly show how important faith is. They promise that you can have WHATEVER you have the faith for. Scripture puts no limits or qualifications on the known needs of this life – so do not limit them! These scriptures show us that whatever you desire in life – faith is absolutely necessary to get it. You should not expect to get anything from God, if you refuse to have faith. Jesus commanded us to, “Have faith in God”; therefore, we should have faith in God. It’s not impossible to have faith; it’s not God’s responsibility to give you faith; you can’t pray for faith. Operating in faith is your choice and responsibility!

It is all-important to have faith, because:
No prayer will be answered without faith
You cannot please God without faith
You will not get anything from God without faith
And – without faith you will be disobedient to God.

If God commands us to have faith, then to break the commandment, with doubt and unbelief, must be sin. Romans 14:22b (K.S. Wuest) says, “Moreover, everything which is not of faith is sin.” The Amplified says, “For whatever does not originate and proceed from faith is sin [whatever is done without a conviction of its approval by God is sinful].”  Believers should be as concerned about not breaking this law as they are about breaking any other of God’s laws! If believers realized that it’s a sin to have unbelief and to doubt God and His word, it would motivate them to change and to do something about it! The problem is, that people just think that doubt and unbelief are “normal” and to be expected and part of the human experience. Most people – even believers – are just indifferent about it. If you don’t think there’s a problem, or if you don’t think it can be helped, then you don’t look for an answer or a solution.

When people pray, if they’ve believed the devil’s lies that not all people can believe God and have faith, then they’ll think that it’s perfectly alright to live in doubt and unbelief and that it’s normal to waver in your believing and asking. And when prayer isn’t answered, they take it for granted that it must not be God’s will. Some people even pray prayers that begin with, “If it be Thy will”! We know what God’s will is! His will is His word! So their defeat is all blamed on God, and considered His will, without question. The truth is that believers are surrendering to the devil and his cohorts who are opposing the answer to their prayers! Defeat becomes such a habit to the average believer that they don’t even think about it. In fact, they are way more surprised when a prayer does get answered than if it doesn’t!

If God does not answer a prayer, it doesn’t mean that it was not His will, or that He is unfaithful – it simply means that the prayer was prayed in doubt and unbelief. What does the Bible say? If it says that God always answers faith - then the lack of an answer simply shows our unbelief. When the disciples asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast a demon out, Jesus’ answer was, “Because of your unbelief” (Matthew 17:14-21). There is not one scripture that says that prayer remains unanswered for any other reason. If we excuse our unbelief and blame the failure on God, then we are sinning against Him. Doubting God is a sin! If no one would doubt God, there would be no failure to get answers to prayer every time we prayed for anything that is already covered by the promises of God.

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