Prayers : Part 20

Your situation will dictate what you need to pray. Once you identify that, you release your faith using a specific type of prayer. We continue our discussion on the prayer of faith, otherwise known as petition prayer. We have been meditating on Mark 11:24.

We talked about the necessity of knowing your inheritance. What things can you ask for? Everything necessary in order for you to live life more abundantly. Faith is your proof of evidence (Hebrews 11:1). If you are expecting it, faith means you have it. There is a phenomenal God-faith lifestyle that goes along with this. The biggest hole in exercising this type of faith is the misunderstanding that you can tack the prayer of faith onto specific requests. No, this prayer is not a gimmick. Living out this lifestyle means it runs through every aspect of your being.

Matthew 8:5-13 – Would you be ok with just asking for Jesus’ word and not have Him present? The centurion had faith that most of us don’t have. Because the soldier understood authority (v.9), he knew power had been granted for a service. When you speak, it is an action. The centurion was acting in line with his inheritance. Don’t work your faith, just be in faith.

Line your lifestyle up with your faith.

Question from the congregation: If you know you need help in the physical realm and took [that request] to the throne, asking while you believed, and believed you received, are you supposed to take action by going to the Body? What do you say when somebody asks, “Are you ok?” Do you do anything?

Pastor Rick's Answer: If you really believed you received, you wouldn’t have any follow up questions about it. You’d be excited from that point on. If faith is action and you believed you received, you won’t go to anybody – you went to the Source! Never put a face and/or a name to your answer. Remember our words are part of our lifestyle. Quit lying if you don’t feel well! If you reply, “I’m blessed,” then your face should agree. This mindset stops you from reaching out to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

When you cease from your own works, God will begin to work with and for you.

Prayers : Part 19

Today, we continue our discussion of the prayer of faith, also known as petition prayer. Prayer is one the most specific ways that God reveals himself to us or, stated another way, for us to come into the knowledge of God. God has one purpose for prayer – for Him to answer. However, the enemy works overtime to keep us deceived into not receiving from God. God intends that we receive whatever it is we ask for when we pray, which is why the enemy works hard to warp people’s perceptions so that they stay away from the prayer of faith.

You must believe that you receive when you pray.

The prayer of faith springs from Mark 11:24. When you pray the prayer faith, you are not simply asking God for something, you are making a demand upon God for something in the face of a hostile enemy. When you pray the prayer of faith, you must believe that you receive what you “demand” from God at the very moment you pray. Believe is the same thing as faith in the bible. We must make faith a verb in the context of the Word. What must you believe (or faith)? That you receive at that moment the desires you are praying about. You cannot believe that you receive from God before you pray. You cannot believe that you receive from God after you pray. If you do, your prayers won’t be effective. You have to believe that you receive what you pray for by faith when you pray.

How do you know whether you are in faith when you pray? The first test is you only ask once for your petition (Matthew 6:5-8). Praying over and over is proof that you that you did not receive when you prayed. You should never be tempted to ask again if you received when you prayed. The second test is that you should act like you already have what you requested from God. You should be bold, confident and, most importantly, excited! If you are truly a faith person, you don’t get excited when the thing you prayed for manifests in the physical realm. Faith is acting on what you believe (James 2:17). Therefore, your excitement comes from receiving your request when you prayed. In other words, if received by faith when you prayed, you don’t talk about what you don’t have. You are excited because you already have it.

Faith is all-important in our relationship with God.

In Hebrews 11:1, hope is the same as expectation. Therefore, faith is the substance or materiality of things expected. Why are things expected? They are expected because God has already provided. Faith also is the proof or the evidence of things not seen. You have to “see” by faith. This means you see what is in the spiritual realm and ignore what is in the physical realm. You cannot reject your faith because if you do, then the thing that you prayed for won’t manifest in the physical realm. Before what you prayed for shows up in the physical realm, you have to be prepared for people asking if you are going to be a faith person. You have to be ready for people asking you questions like, “Where is that thing you prayed for?” You cannot get distracted by other people’s questions. To walk by faith, you have to be blind to everything except God. There is power in faith because we are putting our confidence in God to produce the things that we request from Him.

Faith needs to be more real than the things we request.

Living a lifestyle of faith means that you don’t waste your time explaining yourself to other people, you don’t worry about other people’s opinions and you don’t try to fit in. You must have faith as your substance or evidence. God makes affliction work for you when you become a believer, but only if you look at the things which are not seen (2 Corinthians 4: 8, 17-18). Faith works for us as long as we are not conformed to the world (Romans 12:2). You must ignore the facts in light of the truth of the Word of God. Faith should be more real than the things we see. The promises of God are “eternal.” The time while we wait works for us. Faith is what keeps a person going, not things.

Prayers : Part 18

We continue our discussion on the prayer of faith, otherwise known as the petition prayer. This is the most commonly thought-of prayer as well as the most personal prayer. It is a straightforward endeavor between you and your Heavenly Father. There are no strings attached or mystery to this prayer. However, the enemy will try to confuse the clarity. What we face on a daily basis will to determine what we need to pray.

Mark 11:24 – play close attention to God’s Word because it is a writing to its people. Anyone can become a child of God, but until you are born again, you cannot expect to receive from the Word and have it personally relevant to your life. Jesus is talking directly to you.

Mark 9:23 -- Keep faith as your proof (evidence). Just like baking a cake, you have to use the right ingredient in the right order to obtain the right result! Everybody can faith their way through situations. Faith springs out of thinking, but faith and thinking are not the same thing.

“Miracle” is a word for power that you and I don’t have in and of ourselves. Bottom line: a miracle is unbelievable power manifested that is beyond us. Jesus is not the only person that walked on water. Peter walked on water, stepping out on faith. In the boat he used his rational mind to step out on faith. But he became distracted and the faith drained out of him. The truth is, if you can faith, all things are possible to you! You will put yourself in the position of sinking or swimming based on the power of God within you.

Hebrews 11:1 -- Bible faith is defined as action based on what a person believes. Faith and belief are not the same. Faith corresponds to what you believe.

James 2:14-22; Proverb 13:12; 19 – our works spring out of our faith. Using the analogy of an empty chair – you have no evidence just by looking at a chair that it will support your weight. It is not until you “experience” or sit in the chair that you know (experience) that the chair will support you.

Prayers : Part 17

Today, we continued to address the prayer of faith, also known as petition prayer. The prayer of faith is the most commonly thought of and the most straight-forward prayer. Unfortunately, some people believe that prayer is a gamble. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we pray the way God wants us to pray, we are guaranteed to get answers to our prayers. When we pray the way God wants us to pray, our complaining about, blaming and criticizing other people in our lives will disappear. The Bible tells us exactly how to pray the prayer of faith:

Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

Mark 11:24

The first step in the prayer of faith is to identify what you want.

To guarantee that our desires, i.e. whatever we have a strong affection for, will not be ones that God has a problem with, we must know our inheritance. The Bible tells us what our inheritance is as believers in Jesus Christ. Therefore, to know our inheritance, we must devote time to the Word of God. In order for us to become “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season,” we must spend time consistently studying and meditating on the Word of God (Psalm 1:1-3).

The second step in the prayer of faith is to believe that you have your request.

In Mark 11:24, Jesus tells us to believe that we receive whatever we desire at the moment we pray. This is crucial to getting our prayers answered. We receive at the moment we pray, not after that moment. Do not believe that you will receive it because it won’t work. We must believe that we receive it now when we pray. The spirit must take place first. God told us to take care of the spiritual things and He will take care of the physical things.

Every time people received from God in the Bible, Jesus emphasized that it was their faith that did it, not His faith (Matthew 9:27-20). In the Bible, “believe” and “faith” are synonymous. In order for us to see our desires manifest in the physical world, we have to believe (or faith) it in the spiritual. We know that we can’t drive our car without the key. Similarly, we can’t make our prayers work without faith. Faith is the key that unlocks all of the answers to our prayers. Faith is active. The Bible says that “faith without works is dead.” (James 2:14-26) We have to put action to what we claim we believe. So, at the moment we pray the prayer of faith, we have to be in action that we have it.

Mark 9:23 says “all things are possible to him that believeth.” You have to believe that nothing is impossible. God doesn’t move for emotion or hope – He moves for faith. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith and hope are two completely different things. Hope changes your attitude. Hope is the target identifier – our covenant gives us hope. You don’t know what to do with faith without hope. Hope targets, but faith brings what we hope for into manifestation.

We must cooperate with the supernatural laws that God put into place. In the spirit realm, what God has done is already done. Faith is the evidence that we have whatever we pray for right now. Faith is the proof of what we cannot see that already exists in the spirit realm. Once the thing we asked God for manifests itself in the physical realm, we no longer need our faith for that thing.

To have answered prayer, we must act on what God has already provided for us. The ball is in our court!