<\/p>\n
When you pray, do you pray in faith? I\u2019m sure we all think that we do, but do we always?<\/p>\n
Prayer is the means by which we communicate with God through praise, thankfulness, confession, intercession, and through conversation with Him in general. However, sometimes our intercessory prayers are lacking in faith. Instead, we may be telling God what He should do, or we may be doubting that God can\/will even do what we are asking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A prayer made in faith is one in which we go to our Heavenly Father knowing we are loved, trusting Him to take care of us and provide for our needs, believing His promises to us, and asking for His presence and perfect will.<\/p>\n
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew 21:22<\/p>\n
I believe there are four ways a prayer made in faith will yield results:<\/p>\n
Have you ever been in a difficult situation in life where you felt hopeless, defeated, or just so weary that you didn\u2019t have the motivation to pray on your own? I sure have. \u00a0 Moses knew that feeling too!<\/p>\n
“As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. But Moses\u2019 hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.” Exodus 17:11-12<\/p>\n
Sometimes we are called to come alongside someone in prayer and \u201clift up their hands.\u201d To intercede in faith on behalf of someone else. Where their faith or strength is faltering, we pray for them in their stead. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about you, but I seem to pray more boldly and in faith when I pray for someone else. I declare God\u2019s promises over their situation believing that God will do what He says He will do. I continue to \u201clift up their hands\u201d until I see God\u2019s answers.<\/p>\n
The following biblical account highlights this type of faith:<\/p>\n
“And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.’\u201d Matthew 9:2<\/p>\n
The Apostle Mark expanded on this story relating that not only had four men brought the paralytic to Jesus, but they had cut a hole in the roof and lowered him down to be near Jesus! Now, that was bold! Jesus saw the faith of those carrying the paralytic to Him for healing and Jesus healed him not only spiritually, but physically.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s lift the hands of another in faith with boldness, and as the Lord sees our faith, He will answer as He has promised.<\/p>\n
You might be reading thinking, \u201cWell, isn\u2019t a prayer on behalf of another the same as lifting up the hands of another in prayer?\u201d I would say it\u2019s a little different. When we pray on behalf of another, the object of our prayer might not even know who we are, or we may see a need in a person that they don\u2019t see in themselves, or they don\u2019t know how to pray, or are unable to.<\/p>\n
The following biblical account showcases what it means to pray for someone who is unable to pray for themselves:<\/p>\n
“A synagogue official came and bowed down before Him, and said, ‘My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.’ When Jesus came into the official\u2019s house, and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder, \u00a0He said, ‘Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.’ And they began laughing at Him. But when the crowd had been sent out, He entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.” Matthew 9:18, 24-25<\/p>\n
The official\u2019s faith was so bold that He told Jesus to come and lay His hand on the child and she would live. Here again, seeing the faith of the official, Jesus healed his daughter.<\/p>\n
I had prayed for years for a person in my life to become sober, yet I was doubting that the prayer would be answered because their living situation, in my mind, wouldn\u2019t have given that person half a chance. One night, I came to my own breaking point about the situation and I cried out to God in faith with boldness that He would remove the chains of addiction from this person. In the most miraculous way, He did just that! \u00a0My years of praying weren\u2019t wasted, but when I prayed in faith believing God would heal, that is when the healing came.<\/p>\n
God hears and answers the prayer made in faith on behalf of another.<\/p>\n
How easy is it for you to pray for yourself? I find that I rarely pray for myself. I know!! It seems silly, but I don\u2019t. As stated earlier, I\u2019ll pray boldly for someone else, but for myself, I think, I know He can heal me, but will He?<\/em> Maybe some of you can relate.<\/p>\n The story of the hemorrhagic woman showcases bold faith on behalf of oneself:<\/p>\n “And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; for she was saying to herself, ‘If I only touch His garment, I will get well.’ But Jesus turning and seeing her said, ‘Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.’ At once the woman was made well.” Matthew 9:20-22\u00a0<\/p>\n This was such a bold move on her part because: 1. she was unclean and was supposed to be isolated according to the law, and 2. she touched the hem of His garment, which during those times was a sacred part of the robe from a Kingship standpoint. Jesus, seeing her great faith, made her well.<\/p>\n This type of healing and\/or answered prayer is just as possible for us today as it was for her then. All we need to do is pray in faith. I\u2019m not promising that every person who prays will be physically healed, but for every person who prays in faith, even if they aren\u2019t healed physically, God touches and brings healing in one way or another.<\/p>\n “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20<\/p>\n There is so much power when a community prays in faith that God promises He will be in their midst.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure if we met for coffee, we\u2019d be able to share testimony after testimony together of miraculous answers to prayer we\u2019ve witnessed when a church or community prayed together for a specific need.<\/p>\n Years ago, I discovered a lump in my neck that turned out to be a thyroid nodule. The first biopsy didn\u2019t yield adequate results, and if the second biopsy didn\u2019t either, they would have no choice but to do a thyroidectomy, which is pretty major surgery. I was put on many different churches’ prayer chains, asking that the second biopsy would yield not only an adequate sample but that the results would be benign. The prayers made in faith on my behalf by several different church communities yielded not only an adequate sample but no cancer was found! The doctor was very surprised, as he doubted he would be able to get an adequate sample even the second time. But God and the prayers of the faithful\u2026<\/p>\n The following biblical account adds more credence to the communal prayer made in faith:<\/p>\n “As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, 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, ‘It shall be done to you according to your faith.’ And their eyes were opened.” Matthew 9:27-30<\/p>\n Jesus saw these two men together crying out to Him in one common voice in faith and He healed their blindness.<\/p>\n May we be the church who prays in faith as a community. As a result, we will see God move in amazing ways.<\/p>\n The biblical accounts discussed above may not have mentioned prayer, but their interactions with Jesus were no different than our prayers to Him today. They were able to talk to Jesus as He stood before them. We speak to Jesus through prayer. \u00a0<\/p>\n “Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’\u201d John 20:28-29<\/p>\n May we have the same bold faith and interactions with Jesus as those who saw Him face-to-face, for in doing so, our prayers in faith will yield results above and beyond what we hoped or imagined.<\/p>\n Photo Credit: \u00a9GettyImages\/TinnakornJorruang<\/span><\/p>\n Karen Del Tatto\u00a0<\/strong>is a blogger, author, women’s ministry leader, pastor’s wife, mom, and grandmother who is passionate about the Word of God. Her blog Growing Together in Grace and Knowledge and her books Choosing to Trust God: Breaking the Habit of Worry, A 30-Day Devotional\u00a0<\/em>and Choosing to Trust God Companion Journal<\/em> reveal her heart for providing Biblical insights to encourage women to grow in and through their struggles while equipping them to overcome. Karen and her husband live in Rhode Island and enjoy walks in the woods, owling, and spending time with their grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you pray, do you pray in faith? I\u2019m sure we all think that we do, but do we always? Prayer is the means by which we communicate with God through praise, thankfulness, confession, intercession, and through conversation with Him in general. However, sometimes our intercessory prayers are lacking in faith. Instead, we may be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[348,56,1357,154,6288],"class_list":["post-19326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-faith","tag-prayer","tag-results","tag-ways","tag-yields"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}4. Communal Prayer in Faith<\/h2>\n