Discover how to be unwavering in what you believe--not only by having faith in God, but also by having faith toward Him.
It can tend to be confusing trying to understand how, with one Lord and one Bible, we can come up with so many different viewpoints and church groups.
You can experience a 100% success rate in your prayer life. That’s right.
The best part? The Bible tells us how!
Here are steps to prayer that bring results.
1. Base Your Prayers on God’s Word. (1 John 5:14-15) You can go boldly to the throne of grace when your prayers are lined up with what God has already said. There is a promise from God to you for every situation you face. Find the scriptures that match your situation, then pray accordingly. You will see results.
Not always, but it can be. The good news is that it’s not hard to recognize the difference.
First, let’s establish this: It is always appropriate for a child of God to communicate openly with the Father. We don’t have to completely stop praying about something once we have taken a stand in faith. When we have taken a specific stand in faith, we can expect that God will continue to speak to us about that situation and He will give us the wisdom and insight we need.
It is so important to remember that when it comes to God, He deals with everything according to the heart. There are times when unbelievers can receive healing. And there are times when believers don’t.
The miracle-working power of Jesus is always available, but sometimes we have to press in to discover just how to receive or minister healing to another person. Praying in the spirit and listening for the leading of the Lord will help you discern how to minister healing to an individual.
No! Tongues are not of the devil. Peter spoke in tongues. Paul spoke in tongues. Something that is of the devil would not have been practiced and encouraged in the Word of God. That’s just a lie of the devil to keep you out of the good things that God has for you.
The Apostle Paul said, “For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying” (1 Corinthians 14:14). We see here that the “I” who was doing the praying was Paul. He did the speaking in an unknown tongue, but his spirit did the praying.
1 John 5:14-15 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (NIV).
The key to knowing that God is hearing your prayers is to pray according to His will.
How do you ensure you’re praying God’s will? You pray His Word!
God does not desire that any believer be filled with fear—even when it comes to meeting Him:
“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love” (1 John 4:16-18).
This may surprise you, but you don’t have to defend your belief in biblical prosperity. Jesus said, “But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands”(Mark 10:30, KJV). But He didn’t stop there. He went on to say, “with persecutions.”
Though he’d certainly like you to believe otherwise, you have total and complete authority over the devil through Jesus!
Jesus said in Luke 10:19, “Behold! I have given you authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]; and nothing shall in any way harm you” (AMPC).
When do you take authority?
Jesus said as long as you live in the world, you're going to have trouble. (I can vouch for that!) But you're not just in the world. You're in Jesus in the world, and that makes all the difference. You're in Him and He's overcome every kind of trouble there is.
As God's child, you're not the defeated trying to get victory. You're the overcomer, and Satan's trying to rob you of the victory that already belongs to you.
One of the dirtiest, most damaging lies that the devil ever told you was when he said, "You aren't important." Don't you ever believe that.
You are important! Every born-again member in the Church of Jesus Christ has a part to play in God's plan. God has something for you to do that no one else can do just like you can. If you don't take your place and do your part, things won't be quite right.
I can just hear you thinking, Oh, Gloria, I'm just one person. What could I possibly do that could be so significant?
A covenant of grace. That's what you and I have with Almighty God. If you could truly grasp the significance of that, you'd never be the same again.
What exactly is a covenant of grace? It's a relationship of favor that gives you access to someone else's power.
An illustration of a covenant of grace is the covenant the old Sicilian "family" members have with the "godfather" of the "family."
Remember when you went to school and learned your ABCs? You learned them by using your five senses and your logical abilities to gather information and sort it out. That kind of knowledge is called natural knowledge and it's the only kind most people know anything about.
But in the kingdom of God, there's another kind of knowing. One that works its way from the inside out instead of from the outside in. It's called revelation knowledge.
What is God's reason for prospering His people? Is it so we can watch bigger TVs? So we can buy finer houses and more luxurious cars?
Establishing God's covenant on the earth and giving to those in need: Those are God's purposes for prosperity!
Most of us have a distorted idea about patience. We think of it as something designed to help us suffer failure gracefully, but according to these scriptures, it will actually put us on the path to success!
Patience (or being consistently constant) is the power twin of faith. They work together to see to it that the promises of God are fulfilled in your life.
Grace teaches us! The "Spirit of grace" instructs us from the inside. Let the Holy Spirit of God counsel you and teach you how to live in this present world.
You may be facing trouble today that’s being caused by people who have willfully plotted to do you harm. They may be trying to steal your business, your home, your children, or even to destroy your marriage. If so, I have a word of encouragement for you. According to Psalm 33:10, God will bring the plans of those people to nought. He will make their devices of none effect. The counsel of the heathen is brought to nought, but the counsel of the Lord stands forever!
Words won’t work without faith any more than faith will work without words! It takes them both to put the law of faith in motion.
Many believers don’t realize that. They’ll continually speak words of doubt and unbelief, then they’ll jump up one day and say a couple of faith words and expect mountains to move—and to their dismay, they don’t.
Why not?