Prayer Requires Faith

1986

Number 9 prerequisite is faith. In Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours if you believe that you have already received it. In James 1:6, “When you ask, you must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” He said if you pray and you doubt in your mind that you are going to receive the answer to that prayer, God can’t answer that because He is dishonored by your doubt. Okay? You must believe that you have already received it, in order to honor God with that prayer. You must not doubt. You must not doubt.

Those five little words, “If it be Thy will,” has destroyed more lives in the history of the world than probably any other five words. Because sincere people will think that what I’m supposed to do is doubt because it might not be God’s Will. That’s not what the Bible teaches about that. The point is that you have to believe that you have to believe that you have already received it. Anyone that asks and doubts, they can’t possibly receive what they are asking for from God. Now, you have to start with that as Truth and then try to understand what it means to ask according to the will of God. You have to start with the Truth that if I pray and I doubt, there’s no reason to expect that I’ll receive it. Start with that, and then try to understand the other things because these are absolute, these are a little more subtle.

In Matthew 13 an entire city was lost. They never saw the power of Jesus because of their lack of faith, because of their shallow unbelief. They never saw the power of Jesus. So, believe that you have already received the answer by the assurance that’s given by God. I’ll leave that phrase with you because that’s really the key to what I’m saying. The assurance is given by God in 1 John 5 and Romans 8.