This idea I am writing totally changed my life for the better. I am much more optimistic and happier now that I understand faith. A couple of years ago I didn’t fully believe in prayer. I had prayed many prayers that didn’t get answered and I didn’t know why they didn’t, so I began to lose faith in prayer.
The Apostles spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with the best teacher ever, Jesus Christ. After three years they still didn’t understand prayer very well, and had several false starts trying to get answers to prayer. If it took them that long, don’t expect to have powerful prayer faith over night! It takes a lot of time to build your faith.
Then I wrote a book on prayer and spent several hours a day studying faith and prayer for a year and still study the idea of faith almost every day. It really changed my life for the better. Now i realize that most people don’t pray the way the Bible teaches us to pray. For example, In Exodus 14:15, Moses was trapped between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea, crying out to God for help. God told him to quit praying and take action:
15 Then the Lord said to Moses,“Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.” Exodus 14:15
God told him to stop praying and do something, because God had already given him the power he needed.
In Acts 3:6 we see that the apostles didn’t stand around praying for a lame man, they spoke to him, not to God, and said “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
In Matthew 17:22 Jesus told his followers to actually speak to a mountain (mountain could mean problem), instead of praying. He said 20 “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” No need to waste time praying to God over and over again, I found I only needed to pray once, after that I needed to thank God for his answer to the prayer (Col 4:2; Phil 4:6), and speak to the problem. For example “In Jesus name, I am healthy!” That was to get healed. If you think about it, if you have faith, why would you keep asking for it? If I go to a restaurant and ask the waitress for water, I don’t ask her again for it unless I believe she is not going to bring it to me.
I found the reason many of my prayers did not get answered is because I was praying sissy prayers, I wasn’t speaking to the problem, I was talking to God about it and he had set a precedent way back in the time of Moses. No wonder all the great people of God used props the way Moses did when they performed miracles. Elisha used his jacket to strike water and it separated, he threw some flour in a pot of poison to make it safe.
In James 5 the Bible tells us that Elijah was a man just like us, he was not some superman that we can never be like, he was an ordinary human being that had faith, so that God used him. James 5 says that our prayers can be just as powerful as Elijah’s.
I find I have many more answers to prayers when I speak out to the problem like Jesus commanded us to do, and like the OT people did, and the NT people did also. The prayers taught to us in church are NOT Biblical prayers, they are taught to us by people who don’t know how to pray—no wonder we don’t get good results!
So I set about to increase my faith. I began to memorize Bible verses about faith. I said them every day. I read about modern day and Biblical Christians who had powerful prayers to find out how they had such faith and just to increase my faith. I used the FAITH steps https://bradstanton.com/2012/08/15/faith-bible-verses/ to have stronger faith. As time went on, I was amazed how many of my prayers were answered. I am not saying all my prayers are answered, I don’t have that kind of faith yet, but I am growing in faith every day.
Something that really amazed me was that many scientists proved scientifically that faith is powerful and truly changes things. A psychologist and pharmacist named Emil Coue used faith to cure his patients. He told them to believe they were getting better and they did get better! He told his patients to say “Every way and every day I’m getting better and better.”
Coue had results much better than other psychologists because he gave people hope and faith.
It is amazing to me how many scientists and business people understand faith and do amazing things because of it.
Matthew 7:7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 8:13Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
Matthew 9:22Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
Matthew 9:29 Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; 30 and their sight was restored.
Matthew 15:28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Matthew 17:20 Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
