Trust Sees God doing Things Here and Now when We Pray! Part III

Tip! 'Supplication' is the very soul of prayer in the way of pleading for some one thing, very much needed, and the need intensely felt.

Do we believe, without a doubt? When we pray, do we believe, not that we will receive the things that we ask for on a future day, but that we will receive them, now? This is the teaching of the inspired Scripture. How we need to pray, "Lord, increase our faith," until doubt be gone, and total trust claims the promised blessings, as it's very own.

This is no easy condition. It is reached only after many failures, after much praying, after many long hours or even days of waiting, and after much trial of our faith. Could our faith so increase until we realize and receive all the fullness there is in that Name that guarantees to do so much!

Our Lord puts trust as the very foundation of praying. The background of prayer is trust. The whole issuance of Christ's ministry and work was dependent on implicit trust in His Father. The centre of trust is God. Mountains of difficulties and all other hindrances to prayer are moved out of the way by trust and his virile henchman, faith. When trust is perfect and without doubt, prayer is simply the outstretched hand, ready to receive.

Trust perfected, is prayer perfected. Trust looks to receive the thing asked for -- and gets it. Trust is not a belief that God can bless, that He will bless, but that He does bless, here and now. Trust always operates in the present tense. Hope looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present. Hope expects. Trust possesses. Trust receives what prayer acquires. So that what prayer needs, at all times, is abiding and abundant trust.

The regrettable lack of trust and following failure of the disciples to do what they were sent out to do is seen in the case of the possessed son, who was brought by his father to nine of them while their Master was on the Mount of Transfiguration. A boy, sadly afflicted, was brought to these men to be cured of his dilemma. They had been commissioned to do this very kind of work. This was a part of their mission. They attempted to cast out the devil from the boy, but had signal handedly failed. The devil was too much for them. They were embarrassed at their failure, and filled with shame, while their enemies were in triumph. Amid the confusion Jesus arrives on the scene. He is informed of the circumstances, and told of the conditions connected to the problem. Here is the succeeding account:

Tip! What really determines' the effectiveness of our labor for Christ is the measure of our faith and the fervency of our prayers. If our faith is poor and our praying is indifferent; how can we expect to achieve much for Him?

"Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him and the child was cured from that very hour. And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, "Why could not we cast him out?" And He said unto them, "This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting."

Can you see why these men were having trouble? They had been lax in growing their faith by prayer and, as a consequence, their trust utterly failed them. They trusted not God, nor Christ, nor the ability of His mission, or their own for that matter. So has it been many times since then, in many a crisis in our own lives. Failure has resulted from a lack of trust, or from a weakness of faith, and this, in turn, from a lack of prayerfulness.

Tip! So when we ask Christ to carry out His works in our hearts we are fervently praying that our Father may be glorified in His Son.

Many a failure in revival efforts has been traceable to this same cause. Faith had not been nurtured and made powerful by prayer. Our neglect of the inner chamber or secret prayer time with our Father, this is the cause of most spiritual failure. And this is as true with our personal struggles with the devil as was the case when we went out to attempt to cast out devils in our own lives. The only way to change this is we must be on our knees in private communion with God. This is the only guarantee that we will have Him with us either in our personal struggles, or in our efforts to convert sinners.

Everywhere in God's Word we see that when people approached Him, our Lord put trust in Him, and the divinity of His mission, in the forefront. He gave no definition of trust, and He furnishes no theological discussion of or analysis of it; for He knew that people would see what faith was by what faith did; and from its free exercise trust grew up, spontaneously, in His presence. It was the product of His work, His power and His Person. These furnished and created an atmosphere most favorable for its exercise and development.