Do you have an active prayer life? Are you seeing answers to prayers that you lifted up to the Lord? Or does God seem distant and unresponsive to your requests? Perhaps the one element that is missing is a belief that God can do the impossible? Matthew 19:26 and Luke 1:37 serve as reminders that the prayer of faith must be void of doubt. Whenever doubt creeps in, prayer becomes nothing more than wishful thinking.
Is anyone among you sick? He should call in the church elders (the spiritual guides). And they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name. 15 And the prayer [that is] of faith will save him who is sick, and the Lord will restore him; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven, James 5:14-15.
From my own personal experiences, the mindset I bring to prayer will influence whether or not my requests will be answered. Sometimes I will write down a prayer, but I question if this is realistic enough. Instead of boldly entering God’s presence in prayer with confidence, I tend to exhibit a lame and timid prayer life. When belief and faith are compromised, you won’t be able to move mountains like Jesus in the passage below.
And as He saw [k]one single leafy fig tree [l]above the roadside, He went to it but He found nothing but leaves on it [[m]seeing that in the fig tree the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves]. And He said to it, Never again shall fruit grow on you! And the fig tree withered up at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled greatly and asked, How is it that the fig tree has withered away all at once? 21 And Jesus answered them, Truly I say to you, if you have faith (a [n]firm relying trust) and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, it will be done, Matthew 21:19-21.
Perhaps part of the problem of an average prayer life is that Christians haven’t experienced or seen the power of God personally. As the disciples witnessed this fig tree wither, a light likely went on in their minds. As if to say, “this is what a prayer of faith looks like.” If you’re tired of going through the motions of prayer, it’s time to spice things up with a firm reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit to transform your prayer life in 2022.
by Jay Mankus
ExpressYourself4Him 