THE PRAYER OF FAITH
10th May 2023
Many people pray, but the element of “believing” can be missing. James 5:15 states that “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.”
When I’m asked to pray about a situation, a specific need or healing; I can pray in general terms, or I can ask God how to pray specifically, to receive insight, so I have a word to stand on - a scripture that has so spoken to me that I know, that I know, that I know exactly what I am believing for, and then I can offer the prayer of faith.
It’s good to ask yourself questions. What am I believing for? What am I certain of? What has God said? Then in a sense you are praying the prayer of agreement with God, as well as the prayer of faith.
Sometimes our prayer can sound like wingeing, or informing God about a situation and telling Him what to do! This does not sound like “the prayer of faith”. It’s so easy to rely on human wisdom or experience and think I know how to pray, but every situation is different and we need to ask Father to tell us what He wants.
“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) Listening and waiting for God to reveal His thoughts can release faith, and then armed with faith you can pray with confidence and expect the answers you already know you are going to receive.
One time I was crying out to God to do something in the heart and circumstances of a person I cared about. In some ways I was fretting, but I thought I was praying when I heard the Holy Spirit say that the person I was praying for was bound by many things such as self concern, self pity, self effort and many other ‘self’ issues. I now could see this quite clearly and changed my prayer to a plea for God to set this person free.
A scripture came into my mind, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19) And again I asked God to set them free, “No, you set them free” was God’s reply, “I have given you authority to bind and loose.” That was a totally new way of approaching prayer, so I found my husband, explained what I had heard, and together we brought the situation before the Lord and bound all the things He showed us and released the opposite to replace the self, self, self.
At that moment something changed, faith was operative and it wasn’t ‘hoping’ but had turned into ‘knowing’, and we saw an amazing result. So check out what heaven is thinking, ask questions and when you have instructions on how to act, then do it and wait in faith for the outcome.
by Joyce Sibthorpe
