“According to your faith”—not someone else’s—“be it unto you” When Peter and John healed the lame beggar at the gate of the Temple, Peter said, “Look at us”—and immediately the man was healed (Acts 3:1-9). His faith was in their faith, and God honored it. But God expects more from those of us who are familiar with the promises in His Word and understand how faith works. He expects us to make direct, personal contact with Him, and to demonstrate our faith by claiming those promises ourselves. He wants us to learn to put our faith in Him alone, and not to depend on someone else’s faith or prayers or connection with Him.There are times, of course, when we should ask others to pray with us, but that’s different from leaning on their faith. Sometimes we need to avail ourselves of the extra power that comes from united prayer (Matthew 18:19), or to demonstrate our faith by meeting certain conditions He has set down in His Word, such as asking others to pray for our healing (James 5:14-16). God doesn’t hear and answer others’ prayers more than our own, and the power isn’t in the elders’ hands—“the prayer of faith will save the sick.” It’s our faith that God rewards with the answer, and He does that for us because we have demonstrated that faith by putting feet to our prayers.—James 2:20-24 ESV - Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.Romans 2:6-8 ESV - He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.Romans 5:1-21 ESV - Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 06:14:58 +0000
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