August 14
Today, faith is another element of prayer that we will be considering. It is as important for us to know how to pray as it is to know how to work. We are not told that Jesus ever taught His disciples how to preach, but He taught them how to pray. He wanted them to have power with God; then He knew they would have power with man. In James we read:”If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God… and it shall be given him; but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.”
So faith is the golden key that unlocks the treasures of heaven. It was the shield that David took when he met Goliath on the field; he believed that God was going to deliver the Philistine into his hands. Someone has said that faith could lead Christ about anywhere; wherever He found it He honored it. Unbelief sees something in God’s hand, and says, “I cannot get it.” Faith sees it, and says, “I will have it.”
Having faith in God is as same as trusting Him, when you come to that realm with God, you will discover that before and during your call He answers. Let’s consider how faith in God will become an instrument to receiving from Him. Consider further:
“It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” Isa. 65:24
Quick work this! The Lord hears us before we call; and often answers us in the same speedy manner. Foreseeing our needs, and our prayers, He so arranges providence that before the need actually arises He has supplied it, before the trial assails us He has armed us against it. This is the promptitude of omniscience, and we have often seen it exercised. Before we dreamed of the affliction which was coming, the strong consolation which was to sustain us under before it had arrived. What a prayer-answering God we have!
The second clause suggests the telephone. Though God be in Heaven and we upon earth, yet He makes our word, like His own word, to travel very swiftly. When we pray aright we speak into the ear of God. Our gracious Mediator presents our petitions at once, and the great Father hears them and smiles upon them. Grand, praying this! Who would not be much in prayer when he knows that he has the ear of the King of kings?
The new life begins with faith; then we have only to go on building on that foundation. “I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” But bear in mind, we must be in earnest when we go to God.
“Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me: for Thou art the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day.” Psalm 25:5
When the believer has begun with trembling feet to walk in the way of the Lord, he asks to be still led onward like a little child upheld by its parent’s helping hand, and he craves to be further instructed in the alphabet of truth. Experimental teaching is the burden of this prayer. David knew much, but he felt his ignorance, and desired to be still in the Lord’s school: four times over in two verses he applies for a scholarship in the college of grace.
It were well for many professors if instead of following their own devices, and cutting out new paths of thought for themselves, they would enquire for the good old ways of God’s own truth, and beseech the Holy Ghost to give them sanctified understandings and teachable spirits. “For thou art the God of my salvation.” The Three-One Jehovah is the Author and Perfecter of salvation to His people.
Reader, is He the God of your salvation? Do you find in the Father’s election, in the Son’s atonement, and in the Spirit’s quickening, all the grounds of your eternal hopes? If so, you may use this as an argument for obtaining further blessings; if the Lord has ordained to save you, surely He will not refuse to instruct you in His ways. It is a happy thing when we can address the Lord with the confidence which David here manifests, it gives us great power in prayer, and comfort in trial. “On Thee do I wait all the day.”
Patience is the fair handmaid and daughter of faith; we cheerfully wait when we are certain that we shall not wait in vain. It is our duty and our privilege to wait upon the Lord in service, in worship, in expectancy, in trust all the days of our life. Our faith will be tried faith, and if it be of the true kind, it will bear continued trial without yielding. We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously He once waited for us.
Where have your faith failed in time past, visit it again today and start again, now you know that He hears before and during your call; am sure you will do better.
Come with me and make this simple prayer: This day I will pray in faith, not only believing that I shall be heard, but that I am heard; not only that I shall be answered, but that I have the answer already. Holy Spirit, help me in this!
Please forward this mail to as many as you think that need to tap into this promise of God.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
Evang. Ifeoma Ohondu
