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Grace Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam Chess
THE POWER OF FAITH
(Steps to the Prayer of Faith)
1) Faith is the confident assurance that what
we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we
cannot yet see.
2) Faith is catching a glimpse over the hill of
what is… and grasping a picture in our spiritual mind of what God
wants to be!
3) Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
4) Faith brings into our mind and our heart the
assurance of what is not as if it already were!
5) Faith makes us sure of what we hope for and
gives us proof of what we cannot see.
I. Steps to the Prayer of Faith
Let me give you the first three steps all at once…
A) Step one: Desire
B) Step two: Determine
C) Step three: Ask
Now let’s talk about them:
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Step One: Desire
The very word makes us raise our eyebrows… desiiiire…
We immediately attach negative connotations to that word. And not
without some reason. Every sin we’ve ever fallen into, started with a
wrong desire. So, does that make all desire bad?
You can clear that question up quickly just by a
quick look at a concordance;
Earnestly desire the best (spiritual) gifts. ( Cor.
12:31)
1 Peter 2:2 as newborn babes, desire the pure
milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,
1 Timothy 3:1 This is a faithful saying: If a
man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.
Luke 22:15 Then He said to them, “With
fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you
before I suffer; (Jesus!)
Of course all desire is not bad. Most of the
decisions we make throughout the day come from a desire or a lack of a
desire. In fact, the stronger the desire, the more focused we are is
seeing something through. Some of you get a hankering for chocolate
and God help anyone who gets between you and a source.
So.. desire is not bad, it is what motivates us to
action in life. We can have desires that take us down a wrong trail
into sin and we can have desires that penetrate right into the presence
of God. It’s not the fact that you have desires… it’s what they are
focused on, that matters.
There are a half dozen words translated “desire”
in the Bible but I noticed similarities in translation that caught
my attention:
Let me illustrate: If you go through the line at
the Golden arches and the nice girl at the other end of the muffled
line says; Do you want fries with you burger, and you say ahh…
wellll….. I don.t know,…. I guess so.
Did you just express desire or not? When my
grandson sees a McDonald’s, he immediately wants… not something to
eat…. he specifically wants French fries!
In fact, the Biblical words for desire include
what we would define as:
Craving:
When your desires, toward God, reach the point
of “craving”, you are getting in the realm of; getting set up for;
are on the verge of exerting faith.
If you are approaching God with a “take it or leave
it” attitude you are finished before you start. If our prayers consist
of “God I sure hope someday you will”… we’re not praying in faith!
Faith is an attitude of victory within you!
Faith brings a sense of incredible
confidence in a given situation, an assurance of undefeatable
victory over the present circumstances, an inner certainty that
makes impossibly huge mountains seem like mole hills.
Pastor, is that what you have happening inside you?
Sometimes… not often enough! That’s why I’m so intent on studying this
along with the rest of you.
We cannot come to God with a ho-hum attitude and
expect an answer to our prayers . Faith requires us to be serious
and expectant as we approach God.
I have, in private counseling with some of you,
picked out an area in your life that I knew you were really intense
about, and told you that if you gave half as much attention to you
relationship with God as you do to that particular activity, you
would be a mighty warrior of the Faith. That’s probably true of
most of us… I know it’s true about me.
Think about what activity in your life you
get completely focused on… Imagine what would happen, in your
life, if you gave the same intensity to your relationship with
God. That you give to that special interest.
Craving….
We understand this intense reaction better when it’s
on the negative side. When you have an intense craving for illicit sex,
the KJV calls that lust, it’s just a word meaning an intense desire for
the wrong thing.
We can understand that God does not want us to
have intense desires for the wrong things. We have a harder time
understanding that God does want us to have intense
desires for the right things.
God is most pleased when you come to him
intensely desiring something.
Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart. (NIV)
Of course that bring yup that whole sticky issue of
having a craving for the wrong things. Asking amiss… Let me remind you
of something from last week:
James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because
you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you
get on your pleasures. (NIV)
James 4:2 You want what you don't have, so
you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have,
and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from
them. And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you
don't ask God for it.
We know that if we ask “amiss” we will not receive
and we are so afraid of “asking amiss” that we don’t ask. Now mind you,
we also know, that if we don’t ask we won’t receive anything either…
but not receiving because we didn’t ask seems a bit more spiritual than
not receiving because we were selfish! Either way… we are seriously
missing out on what God has in store for us!
Were so concerned about stepping over the line that
we don’t step up to the line!
Step Two: Determine!
Yes, I know this is one of the hardest steps of them
all… and if you can’t clearly determine what you are supposed to pray
for how can you be sure you are not asking amiss?
I don’t have all the answers to those questions. I
explained to you the whole concept of “faith coming by hearing and
hearing by the Rhema of God”…. .where God uses His Word to implant His
truth in your heart. I explained that the closer you move toward God
the more His desires become your desires.
Wednesday evening I’m going to give you Biblical
steps you can apply to move your heart toward the heart of God.
I’m not going to explain today how to
determine what God wants you to ask in every situation… I’m going
to explain why it is so important that you do determine what
God wants you to ask for, what he wants you to believe him for;
then that you go after him with intensity until you receive a
positive answer to your prayer.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is
impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him
must believe (that he exists) and that he rewards those who
earnestly seek him.
If you come to him without believing that He rewards
those who earnestly seek him, you are coming without faith, and if you
come without faith you are displeasing him from the git-go.
God is a very understanding God, but he wants us
to understand that faith is so much more than a head-full of fuzzy
thoughts.
Fuzzy unfocused thinking in God’s direction is
not faith! Fuzzy unfocused thinking does not bring the results
faith brings. There is a world of difference between
fuzzy-unfocused thinking and the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen!
James 1:5-8 If you need wisdom--if you want to
know what God wants you to do--ask him, and he will gladly tell
you. He will not resent your asking. 6 But when you ask him, be
sure that you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is
as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the
wind. 7People like that should not expect to receive anything from
the Lord. 8They can't make up their minds. They waver back and
forth in everything they do. (NLT)
While I can’t tell you exactly
how to find out what God wants you to believe Him for, in every
situation… I can tell you that it is essential that you reach the point
of specific, focused asking.
Let’s focus, not on how hard it is, for a
moment, but instead focus on how awesome this whole thing is. The
God of the universe, the creator of all things, is waiting to
connect his Divine mind to your expectant heart. He wants so much
to implant his righteous desires in your mind and into your heart
to such a degree that they become the intense desires of your own
life. He then offers you the privilege of bringing those desires to
him in the form of prayer, and the King of the Universe has
promised that He will move heaven and earth to respond to your
requests...
None of this will happen through your life if you
are sitting on the sidelines, somewhere, hoping that one day the
circumstance around you will change. We can, all, have this cosmic
opportunity available to us, every day, and never take advantage of it.
Illustration: None of us are going to go out and
attempt to steer our car… until it begins moving.
God does not guide motionless people!
We are starting to learn valuable lessons up at the
new church. Last year, when we didn’t have money to erect the building,
we felt like God said : If we want the Jordan to part we need to step
into the water. We stepped in expectantly, and as you all know the
Jordan thoroughly parted.
Yesterday, we noted that the air conditioning
was under way, and the rough plumbing was ready to start. At the
same time we are ready for the rough electric and need to get the
sprinkler system in. We also noted that there is not enough money
in the till to finish all those projects… Our instant response
was…. “ The splitting Jordan is just waiting to be walked in to!”
Step Three: Ask!
Luke 11:9-10 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be
given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened
to you. 10For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to
him who knocks, the door will be opened. (NIV
Mark 11:22-24 "Have faith in God," Jesus answered.
23"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw
yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes
that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I
tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have
received it, and it will be yours.
John 14:13-14 And I will do whatever you ask in
my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may
ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. (NIV
John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose
you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.
Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. (NIV
Matthew 18:19-20 "I also tell you this: If two of
you agree down here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in
heaven will do it for you. 20 For where two or three gather together
because they are mine, I am there among them."
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