{"id":13045,"date":"2016-08-17T01:40:13","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/praying-in-faith\/"},"modified":"2016-08-17T01:40:13","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:40:13","slug":"praying-in-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/praying-in-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"PRAYING IN FAITH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>MATTHEW 21:20\u201322<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>\u201cAnd whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>(Matt. 21:22)<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Whenever we approach our Sovereign Lord to lay our requests before Him, we must always pray in faith and we must pray according to the will of God.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>To pray in faith does not mean that we <i>necessarily<\/i> believe that we will get what we ask for. We cannot approach God thinking that if we have faith that we will be healed of a particular disease then we will definitely be healed. What happens when we are not healed? What conclusion must we draw? The obvious answer is that we did not have enough faith. This can lead to despair and even rejection of the Christian religion altogether.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>What, then, does it mean to pray <i>in faith<\/i>? The Puritan John Preston answers this way, \u201cIt is enough to believe that God is a Father, that He is ready to hear, and not only that He is ready to hear, but that He is ready to do that which is best for me (in this particular situation). Both are required: that you believe Him to be well-affected towards you as a Father, as one who tenders your good, and not only so, but that He will do that which shall be most for His own glory and for your good. If you do so, you pray <i>in faith<\/i>, though, for the particular (thing that you pray for), you do not know whether it shall be granted or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>If we had a promise, like Elijah who was told that it would not rain, then we can believe in the particular object for which we are praying. But, since we pray about many things for which we do not have <i>particular<\/i> promises, we must simply have faith in God Himself, who acts for our good and for His glory. Such an approach to prayer may seem like casting lots, but this is not the case. Having faith in our Father\u2019s goodness is all that is required. We should bring our requests before Him, trusting in Him and wanting only that His will be done.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>If our faith <i>in a particular request<\/i> determines the answer to our prayers, then Jesus must have been faithless indeed, for He prayed that the cup pass from Him. But it did not because that was not God\u2019s will. Jesus, of course, was faithful, and even as He knelt in the shadow of the cross, He trusted in His Father and prayed that His will be done. By this, we learn what it means to pray in faith.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'>Psalm 109\u2013111<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'>Romans 16<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:   18.0pt;line-height:normal'>There are many things we can pray for with   knowledge that they will come to pass. Can you think of what some of those   things are? If you are not sure, look up \u201cpromises\u201d in your topical   concordance, and read of Christ\u2019s promises. When you pray, lay all your   requests before God, keeping these promises in mind.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:   normal'><i>For   further study: Matt. 7:7\u201311 \u2022 Mark 14:32\u201342 \u2022 John 16:24 \u2022 Acts 16:25\u201326<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>tuesday<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>august<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MATTHEW 21:20\u201322 \u201cAnd whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive\u201d (Matt. 21:22). Whenever we approach our Sovereign Lord to lay our requests before Him, we must always pray in faith and we must pray according to the will of God. To pray in faith does not mean that we necessarily believe that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/praying-in-faith\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;PRAYING IN FAITH&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}