Faith's Requirement

With the Lord’s help, I am going to expound a bit on a few scriptures that are of importance to us regarding the prayer of faith:

“Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee….” (Isaiah 25:3) In other words, people strong in faith are the ones (the only ones) who glorify God. Strong in physical might, strong in courage, strong in obedience…can any of these be if we are not first strong in faith? We must believe that GOD IS, first and foremost, and then we must know that our purpose is to glorify Him.

“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee…” (John 17:1) As did Jesus, we also exist to show forth God’s glory; God is the One who allots that glory to us, in order that we might glorify Him. When our light shines, that light comes not from us, but from Him, so that He may be glorified. Right? Jesus glorified God, yet He said we would do greater things than He did. Just as our purpose must be to glorify God, that also must be the goal of our praying.

“How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” (John 5:44) Our prayer requests cannot be born out of self-interest or self-will. They must be born out of a heart whose most fervent desire is to glorify God and to be obedient to His will. God honours us so that we can honour and bring glory to Him. That’s what Jesus did. That was His purpose: to glorify God before all mankind. But if this is not our purpose, if our purpose is to receive this glory from man instead of from God, then we have no faith. For we must seek glory for (and from) God alone to truly believe.

Faith’s end purpose then is to glorify God. And so the prayer of faith must be one that asks for an answer that will bring glory to God alone.

Thus making the desire to glorify God, a “requirement” of true faith!

If this is true, and I can’t help but believe that it is from what I read in the Word of God, then it is no wonder that we have difficulty with the prayer of faith! We spend how many hours a day doing things that do NOT bring glory to God (easily identified by the fact that our thoughts are not on God at all), and then hope suddenly, when called upon to pray, that we can muster up enough faith or in other words, muster up enough “desire to glorify God” to get our prayer answered.

But it isn’t actually what we “do” during the day that is the problem. For example, it’s hard to see how doing the laundry or mowing the lawn, can bring glory to God, right? The truth is that it has always been, and will always be, about our heart! What is our heart’s desire, even while we are doing the laundry? What is our heart’s desire even when we are mowing the lawn? You see, when we are focused on bringing glory to God, in ALL that we do, then ALL that we do will bring glory to God…including praying.

Jesus when speaking to the Father about the disciples said: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one.” (John 17:20-22)

All that Jesus did was so that the world would believe in God. Even our unity, our oneness with Jesus and the Father (which He promises us we will have if we abide in Him and His Word abides in us) brings glory to God. For without the presence of Jesus Christ in our life, we cannot attain a life where God’s glory is our desire! This is for the purpose of denying self which wants to take God’s place in receiving glory.

There are so many scriptures that speak of the glory that we are to bring, and do bring, to God. After all, we are made in the image of God, again to bring glory to God. And all that God accomplished in providing Jesus as a sacrifice to us, was for the purpose of bringing that “reflection” of Himself that we are, back to shining glory once more, to rightly reflect Him, the Most High God!

If we want to pray the prayer of faith, then, we must live our lives IN Christ Jesus. We must keep our hearts stayed on Him, all through the day, not just in moments of the day. We must both live for AND pray for God’s glory, if our prayers are to be answered!

Amen?