Do I Have Enough Faith?

In Acts 3, Peter and John go to the temple to pray. On the way, they encounter…

…a man crippled from birth who was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put everyday to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. 6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’ Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. (Acts 3:2-6)

As I wrote previously, the power to heal is not in the prayer or the person, greatly gifted or otherwise. It’s the work of Jesus, the power of Jesus’ name. Our part, in the whole transaction, is the…

Application of Faith

Now, I need to be clear what I mean by faith. Often, when we come upon someone in need, we look inside ourselves for a feeling of belief. “How confident do I feel right now that what I’m about to pray is going to happen?” And then we try to stir up that feeling, as if by stirring up that feeling, we will have paid God enough to give us what we’re asking. Have you ever done that? Have you ever tried to convince yourself that you really do believe? Faith is not primarily something that’s addressed to your feelings. Faith is primarily addressed to your will! At the simplest level,

Faith is a matter of obedience

In Acts 3, Peter and John were walking along and they were presented with an opportunity. They could have said, “Silver and gold I do not have and we’re late for prayer meeting.” They could have simply brushed the guy off. But they knew they had a responsibility to carry on the ministry of Jesus and they engaged him out of obedience, seeing it as an opportunity orchestrated by God. We’re under the same marching orders. Stop asking whether or not you have enough faith and just pray for people. Lead with your heart. Offering to pray for someone is one of the ways we practice compassion. Here’s a second thing. I don’t fully understand it but….

Faith releases God to do what he wants to do

This is such a fundamental principle of the Christian life. In the way God set up the universe and the kingdom, he’s determined to work with us in accomplishing his purposes. God is highly relational and he’s decided to not do everything by himself. He’s designed life to be a cooperative between himself and us!

God could’ve healed the man in Acts 3 totally apart from Peter and John but he didn’t. That’s significant! He chose to use Peter’s prayer and Peter’s faith to bring about the miraculous healing. And God chooses to use your simple prayers and your faith, puny or otherwise, to bring about healing today. God doesn’t want to work around you but through you.

This is my favorite way to illustrate this but faith is very much like the clutch on a car. As you release the clutch, the power of the engine kicks in. The power is generated by the engine, the clutch is simply the release. When you walk through a parking lot and you encounter someone getting into their Lamborghini, you don’t say, “Wow! I’ll bet you have an amazing clutch in that car.” You don’t say that! You say, “How fast can she go from 0 to 60?”

When faith releases the power of God to do miracles in the world, we don’t say, “Oh, you man or woman of ever increasing faith, aren’t you something!” We say, “What a wonder-working God we serve!” But I’ll tell you, if you don’t release the clutch, the power of the engine is never engaged. And if you don’t exercise faith, if you don’t ask God for a miracle, you’ll never see healing released in the world. We don’t glorify our faith, we glorify God. Yet it’s so amazing to me that God’s sovereignty is great enough to work in cooperation with us, that God has chosen to restrict himself to our prayer, to our faith, to what we choose to release in the world. How much of God are you releasing in the world? How much of God’s grace, kindness, mercy and compassion flow through you? I certainly don’t have the gift of healing but there have been multiple times, over the years, when God used me the way he used Peter and John and he’ll use you, too. Faith not only releases God, it also...

Faith responds to God

Listen, in all my talk about faith, I never want to give you the impression that faith somehow takes the initiative or control away from God. Faith releases God yet faith is always responding to God’s lead and God’s initiative. God is always the one in control. God is always the leader. God never turns control over to us. He alone is Almighty. Yes, faith releases God but it releases God to do what God wants to do, not what we want to do! Can you imagine what kind of monster you or I would be if God gave us the power to do whatever we wanted to do? There’d be mountains flying all over the place. The power is always God’s and it’s never entrusted to people. The power is simply released through us. So we don’t boast about ourselves. We don’t write tickets with God and expect him to fill the order and we don’t boast about our faith. Faith releases God but it always responds to God’s initiative.

Okay. What needs to be in place in a person’s life to enable them to exercise faith? You have to believe God would use someone like you. If you don’t believe God would use someone like you, God won’t use someone like you. Once you believe he can use you, you have to know what you’re here to do. Praying for miracles is part of your job description as a Christian. The reason why many of us do not see miracles has nothing to do whatsoever with our unbelieving culture. We’d all love to blame the lack of miracles on the culture, when the truth is, we don’t see them because we don’t pray for them. We’ve forgotten what we’re here to do. Finally, we need to know what God’s will is regarding miracles in general and healing in particular.

So many people, when they’re praying for the sick are robbed of the ability to release God because they say, “I don’t know if it’s God’s will to heal this person. How can I pray according to his will when I don’t know if God wants to heal them or not?” Listen, it’s always God’s will to heal the sick, always! How can I be so sure? I’m sure because in heaven, there will be no deaf people, blind people or people with cancer. Heaven is a picture of the way God wants it to be. You have to understand God’s heart regarding sickness. He hates sickness. His heart is ultimately to remove sickness from the universe. The issue is not will God heal sickness or disease, he will most definitely do that, the issue is only the timing. Will he do it in the future or will he do it now? So for every sick person on earth, we come to God and we pray, “God, I know it’s your heart to heal. I know it’s your will. So I ask you, will you do it today instead of someday?” Let me ask you. When was the last time your heart was moved with compassion? Do you have the desire to become the healing presence of Christ for others? It’s just Seven Simple Words: Can I pray for you right now? You can practice this in every day life.