The Fundamentals of Faith Part Two!

Welcome back! Here are the rest of the fundamentals of faith that will strengthen your faith journey! Let’s get started!

Prayer

Prayer is vital when it comes to faith and it’s most likely what you’re expecting God to do is something you prayed for! This is the first step you should take when stepping out on faith with something. You should pray for whatever you want in faith; that will kick the rest of your faith journey! Hebrews 4:16 tells us to “come boldly to the throne”, meaning have confidence when you pray. Your prayers aren’t going to get answered if you yourself don’t have confidence in them. Jesus said in Mark 11:24, “therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them”. So, when you’re praying in faith, you have to believe that you will receive what you’re praying for.

So, how do you get this confidence that your prayer is for sure answered? In John 16:23, Jesus said, “most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you”. As long as you say, ‘in Jesus’s name at the end of your prayer, Jesus said that is a guarantee that your prayer will be answered. However, there is more to that, because God isn’t just going to answer every single prayer you send up, it has to be in His will. 1 John 5:14 -15 says, “now this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that have asked of Him”. So, make sure you’re praying according to His will and that is how your prayer will get answered. A sure way to do that is to pray the scriptures that support what you’re believing in faith. For instance, if you’re believing for healing, pray for 1 Peter 2:24 to come to pass in your life. So, you can’t pray just anything but there’s a lot in God’s Word that He will answer. And that is how you can have confidence in your faith prayers, praying in the name of Jesus and praying in God’s will, those two things will guarantee your prayer is answered! Just overall believing that your prayer is going to be answered as well is pivotal when it comes to receiving things through faith.

Praise

Praise usually is what comes after you’ve prayed in faith. Now, that you have prayed in faith, and you believe it’s going to come to pass, you praise God that you have received it. Philippians 4:6-7 says “be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart through Christ Jesus.” This verse has a lot in it but let’s break it down.

“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise”

Psalm 100:4

This verse tells us to go to God about everything through prayer, so everything you want, whether it be peace, joy, stability, forgiveness, etc. go to God about it in prayer. Furthermore, you aren’t anxious because you’ve gone to God in prayer, and if you take the prayer points from above, you’re really not worried because you know your prayers are answered. However, this worry-free feeling only comes when you pray with thanksgiving when you thank God for who He is and for already coming through for you. This is why peace that surpasses all understanding takes over you and guards your heart. When we praise and thank God for answering our prayers and requests, it builds our confidence in Him and our faith. Your prayers will not work if there is no praise attached, during, and after the prayer. Psalm 100:4 says to “enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise”. So, when you pray, give thanks to God and praise Him, that is how you make your prayers effective. Praise shows that you believe you are going to receive what you asked for because you are grateful to God for answering even when you don’t see it. Don’t wait to see the manifestation of your faith to praise God, praise Him before, during, and after!

Confidence in God’s Ability

Your faith will get nowhere if you don’t believe God can do it in the first place. Most people, as I mentioned in the last post, just hope God will come through for them and perform the miracle but don’t have actual faith that He will. Furthermore, people just don’t trust that God is willing or able to answer prayers, perform miracles, provide, etc. They think that God just picks and chooses who to bless but it’s really you. By your faith, you decide whether God moves in your life. In Matthew 9:28-29 two blind men come to Jesus, asking Him to heal them. The passage says that the “blind men came to Him [Jesus]. And Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be to you.” It’s that simple, they came to Jesus expecting to be healed, with full faith that He would, and He did! So, you need to believe that God is able to do exactly what He said and that He can do what you prayed about in faith! God is willing and able to perform miracles for you, you just have to believe that He is. Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” You have to come to God believing that He is able and believe that He is all He says He is! Clearly, based on Matthew 9 and Hebrews 11, when you come to God with full faith and belief, you will be rewarded and see your faith pay off!

It is not that God doesn’t want to bless you, it’s that you don’t have full faith that He is going to come through for you. God performs miracles “according to your faith”, so you have to evaluate how much faith you have for God to actually perform miracles in your life. If you have full faith for it, then you should see the results! Like the “evidence” that was mentioned in Hebrews 11:1 in the last post. But if you aren’t seeing results from your faith, then you don’t have full trust in God’s ability. You’re just hoping and hope isn’t faith. Just know this, God is able, more than able to perform miracles in your life. He is a covenant-keeping God, an Almighty God! And the way you get to trust in His ability to perform is by reminding yourself of His character!

Remind Yourself of God’s Character

God shows us who He is all throughout the Bible and I believe reading about who He is, helps with building faith. When searching the Bible about God’s character, Psalms is a good place because you get to see how faithful God was to David. And that faithfulness applies to us as well. In Psalm 89:33-35, God says, concerning David, that “nevertheless My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him, Nor allow My faithfulness to fail. My covenant I will not break, Nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.”
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“I AM WHO I AM”

Exodus 3:14

God is letting David know through this verse that He will never fail Him, He won’t allow Himself to fail His servant because He is too faithful. Additionally, He won’t change what He told David about His life nor allow His covenant to break. So, if God said you were healed, you’re healed. If God said you’re going to be successful, you’re going to be successful, if God said it, He meant it and it is coming to pass. God is never going to alter His Word concerning you, so stand on that, that God doesn’t change and neither does His Word. Furthermore, when it comes to God’s character, Isaiah 40:28 says, “have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.” I just love this verse because to me it says do not know how powerful God is? He never gets tired and He knows all things more things than we could ever know! How could you not trust this God to perform miracles in your life? He is always working on our behalf and never gets tired of it. He understands to a T how things are going to work out and knows what is best for us! My favorite verse when it comes to God’s character is Exodus 3:14 when God tells Moses “I AM WHO I AM”. This means I am the self-existent one; the eternal, the one who has always been and always will be. How can a God like that ever let you down? How can God ever disappoint you when that is who He is? Isn’t it exciting to serve a God who is that powerful and amazing? So, when it comes to faith it is pivotal to never forget who God is, He is too great to ever fail! I hope this helped with understanding faith and God bless! God is going to bless you, you just need faith!

Stay tuned next week to see Biblical examples of faith! God bless!