‘Cause Ya Gotta Have Faith, F-Faith, F-Faith- Part 3
‘Cause Ya Gotta Have Faith, F-Faith, F-Faith- Part 3
“Prayer is an act of faith. Just by praying to God, you are declaring your trust in someone other than yourself. Your faith is increased as you pray and watch how God answers your prayers. God says in Jeremiah 33:3, ‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ God is awesome in power and there is never a time when He is not beside you. He is faithful and holy.”
-Charles Stanley
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”
-Saint Augustine
Do you ever feel like you’re lacking in faith? Maybe it’s just the season you find yourself in right now; so it’s not the norm. Perhaps it’s due to a pattern of unconfessed sin in your life that has distanced you from an intimate relationship with Him. Or maybe you have a hard time trusting that God cares about the details of your life. After all, you’ve been struggling with your health, finances, children, communication with your spouse, and nothing seems to be getting any better…least of all your attitude about how hard life is right now! At times like these, we have a tendency to doubt God’s faithfulness. “Does He care about me at all?” we wonder. “He has to see what I’ve been going through. How about a little help here!” Can we find any rest or hope in such bleak circumstances? ABSOLUTELY!!!
Charles Stanley said it right. Prayer itself is indeed an act of faith! When we go to the Lord in prayer we are submitting our lives…entrusting our lives to One who is greater than ourselves. And of course, He is more than able if and when we would just ask, “I need Your help, Jesus. Help me to think rightly about the difficulties I’m experiencing right now. Please help me to change my attitude and think more about Your goodness in the 10,000 small moments of each day…even when I’m folding the 9th load of laundry for the day!” Or in my case, going through the onslaught of medical bills that we owe.
Look at the promise in Jeremiah again. God says that all we need to do is call on Him and He will take care of our every longing, prayer request/need, and even give us access to great and mighty things that we aren’t even thinking about in the limited view of our life that we have at the moment.
Prayer truly does change things in us, too! It changes our attitudes. It bolsters our faith. It gives us more and more confidence outside of ourselves, as our relationship with God comes back into focus. Faith and prayer are inseparable. These two components to our Christian walk have the ability to breathe life into dead and dark places. Pray to the Lord even when you feel like faith and trust are waning and watch how He fills your spirit again with unspeakable joy!
Blessings,
Clayton J. Elliott
Pastoral Ministries and Prayer, Kontaktmission USA clay(at)GoKMUSA.org (731) 217-1741
Here are two recent prayer requests from KM missionaries.
The first is from KM missionaries working in Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary. “Giving about 10 hours of religious instruction in four different schools each week, we have the opportunity to share the gospel with some children. Please pray this exposure to the gospel will bear fruit in their lives!”
The second request is from a KM missionary team working in Berlin, Germany. “Please pray that the restructuring of our small groups will be a positive step, that the small group leaders will faithfully serve the Lord, that the new groups will coalesce well and that people will grow in their faith through these groups.”