Chapter Two ” The Prayer of Faith”
Hey there! I am so excited to get back our study on prayer! The first lesson was posted several weeks back in case you missed it. We have been doing some planning here at Interior Inspirations and that is the reason for the delay in getting the next lesson to you. Posts will be made on Monday, Wednesday and Friday but we wanted to get you started today. So without further delay here we go…
First, I want to tell you what Dr. Bisagno says faith is NOT:
- Faith is not believing God can, it is believing He will.
- Faith is not desire.
- Faith is not goodness.
- Faith is not how much we “feel” we deserve something.
- Righteousness is not a substitute for faith.
- Faith is not faith in faith.
- Faith is not a mysterious commodity we are trying to obtain.
The faith of Christ is ours. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
We don’t need more faith. All the faith we will ever need was deposited in us at salvation. Once we receive Jesus as our Savior our part is to appropriate the faith He has given us.
In Scripture, faith and belief are not the same. Faith always comes from God. It involves His revelation, not ours. Faith goes way beyond belief.
Romans 14:23 says that if something is not of faith then it is sin. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith. These two verses alone give us proof of the importance of faith.
Faith is a gift, and we all know that when we are given a gift it belongs to us. It becomes our possession. So you see, when a person becomes a Christian, not only do they receive forgiveness of their sin but they get the gift of faith deposited in them.
There is no way that we could buy the gift of faith for ourselves, just as we can’t buy the gift of salvation. But, there is something we can do, and that is to write a thank you note. Yes, write a thank you note to God. How do I do this you may be asking? You write it with your life my friend. Every day that you get up you appropriate the faith that you have been given and you live out the life of faith. You exercise this faith in your prayer life, in your service to God and to others. It is a thank you note that is never signed, you just keep writing every day!
All the time we have spent trying to grow more faith or increase our faith is worthless. Believe me, I know this painfully well.
Let’s go back to verse 20 in Galatians. Now, don’t get scared but I want to use a little Greek to help us understand this. If you will follow me here I promise it will make crystal clear sense to you!
The New Testament word for faith in Galatians 2:20 is the Greek word pistis. It is found in the Strong’s Greek Concordance ( a really big and heavy book that I am happy to study for you ). It is number 4102 and it means faith, believe, trust, confidence, fidelity and faithfulness. See how easy this is! Just hang in there and I will wrap this up and put a bow on it, I promise!
As I did further study on this word I learned that faith is ALWAYS a gift from God as I mentioned earlier. Faith is NEVER something we can produce on our own, no matter how hard we try. It is God that is birthing faith in us so that we can follow His will. Oh this is great news! Ladies, He loves us so much that not only did He send Jesus to pay for our sins but He gave us faith to go along with it! How good is God? He knew we couldn’t do this so in His fatherly compassion He provided it for us.
I also learned that pistis (faith) is like having a warranty. God’s warranty is the most full proof warranty we will ever have on anything. Ever. Look at the freedom in this ladies! We don’t do anything, God does it ALL. In Romans 12:3 we read these words, “as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” The word faith is the Greek word pistis that we are studying. Do you see it? GOD has allotted it to us, given it to us. I just want yall to get as excited about this as I did!
So how does this apply to our prayer life? We must be women of faith, praying in faith and believing in faith! So take your requests to God and thank Him in advance for His answers. This is not being overly confident or bossy with God. It is using the gift He has given you. So let’s get busy this week praying big prayers and praying them in faith. After all it is really rude to leave a gift unopened.
Living free,
Rene’
If you would like to learn more about prayer and how fasting goes along with it you can read it on my blog www.renecollins66.wordpress.com
