Faith And Intercessory Prayer
Looking at 2 Peter 1:3, "his divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue."
Faith is one of those things....so, faith is based on "knowlodge." A knowledge of God's Word. Wrong thinking produces wrong believing and wrong believing can produce nothing or negative issues. We need to look at somethings about our thinking concerning faith.
Most people think faith is something we do to get a response from God. We use faith, even prayer (praying amiss) to get God to do something he either has done or it's something we need to apply to receive a need met. Many (i'm guilty of this as well) people often times will confess the Word of God, then believe that God will responde and give us what we need. Some have called this pry-bar faith.
Other times, people look at their situation; and thinking if we pay our tithes or pray more often, God will give us what we want.
But that is NOT faith! In fact, it's very close to "knocking on wood, as pagans and unbelievers do! Whenever we rely on what we do instead of God's grace, we are acting just like unbelievers.
Pagans (unbelievers) will proudly say, "Well, I took an oath of poverty: I shaved my head. I fasted. I did this and that. So now I know God is going to hear my prayers. God is going to move in my life."
But it's not just pagans and unbelievers that do this.....
What Does God Want?
I'm sure you've heard Christians say, Man! I've been fasting and praying, reading my Bible, going to church, paying my tithes....what does God want?"
Well, that speaks volumes when we hear speaking like this. It tells us what their problem is. They are putting faith in their actions- in what they've done and not in God's grace. Faith is not something we do to gain God's response.
Faith, it has many definitions, but a favorite one is that faith is our positive response to God's grace. That simply means faith is our positive response to something God HAS ALREADY DONE/GIVEN.
We should not confess the Word of God to get God to heal us. We confess "by His stripes I am healed" because I believe it's already a done deal- it's true (1 Peter 2:24). I am basically speaking what I really believe- I'm not making God heal me, I'm confessing He already has.
You may have also heard people say, "God does nothing until we do something. When we do something, then and only then will God act on our behalf. If we just pray,...pray harder and pray until something happens, if we do this or that, then,....God will move in our lives."
But guess what? That certainly is not faith! If we are not having faith in something God has already done totally independent of us, then it's not true Biblical faith. It's a belief in works.
Too many people (I included) have tried to use and minister faith as if was a pry-bar on God- we cannot do that and succeed.
Mercy Not Justice
Ever heard someone while viewing/showing a picture of themselves and they state: "This picture doesn't do me justice." And we are looking at this awful picture and thinking to ourselves, "you don't need justice, you need mercy!" LOL!
well, if we did get justice, we'd all go to hell- everyone of us! We dererve absolutely nothing from God based on our merits.
James 4:17 says, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Sin is not only the things we have done that are wrong, it's the things we know to do and don't do. We can't earn anything from God based on our actions or goodness. And thinking we can is certainly the greatest sin of all!
I tell you, all too often we see this also in the attitudes of people that intercess in prayer for others- many of whom are called "prayer warriors." As important as this is, it's lined with pitfalls which we can look at on the next page (click the button below).