For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Introduction
The mighty man of God who taught us faith for several decades used to ask us a really insightful question during his teaching sessions and during the Faith Conventions in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After reading Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them,” he would ask, “What did the Lord Jesus say you will have when you pray?”
Some would answer, “Whatever you desire?” Others might say, “Whatever you desire and pray for?” Some other smarter folks would answer, “Whatever you pray for and believe for?” Others would have different combinations and permutations of these answers. Most of the time, those unfamiliar with his teachings or just attending camp meeting for the first time who had not heard him teach on this passage would give one of these wrong answers. Most of us did at first.
He would then point out the key message in this passage, which is in the phrase “Believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them,” and then powerfully lead us by the ministry of the Holy Spirit to see what the Lord is saying. Here the Lord is categorically telling us that what we would have is what we believe we have received while praying.
The Weymouth translation renders this verse more clearly:
“That is why I tell you, as to whatever you pray and make request for, if you believe that you have received it, it shall be yours” (Mk 11:24).
What Did Jesus Say You Will Receive When You Pray?
So what did the Lord Jesus say you’ll receive when you pray? Not what you make request for, not what you believe for, but what you believe you have already received while praying.
It is very important to clearly understand what the Lord is saying here. Faith that receives from God believes it is done even before the thing being asked for from God materializes physically. Faith, as the substance, takes the place of what you’re requesting before it physically materializes. Once you see it in the physical realm, faith concerning that thing ceases to exist, for “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.”
A More Sure Word of Prophecy
The Apostle Peter also related some of those wonderful experiences he had with the other two disciples. He stated that they saw Him, heard Him, and even beheld His glory, but that a “more sure word” is being sent to us. These words of prophecy sent to us by the Lord, “which are spiritual,” are surer and carry more enduring blessings.
“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts” (2 Pet 1:16-19).
Many in the church today confuse sense-knowledge faith with real faith. While operating on the faith that is based on positive physical evidence and outward testimony, they think they are walking in faith. But when the storm hits, they find out that their foundation is not on the rock after all. A solid foundation of faith is built on the Word of God alone. We have to believe and totally rely on His Word, and be fully persuaded that what He has spoken will and must come to pass, even if and when all physical evidence contradicts it. Real faith rests on the Word that God has spoken and that has become a vital revelation in the heart of the believer.
In the first kind of faith, we see God perform signs and wonders, and then we believe that He’s a wonder-working God. We hear of answered prayers, and then we believe that He is a prayer-answering God. But the Spirit of God speaks of revelation faith, where we do not yet see, hear, nor feel, yet we believe; this faith solely and entirely rests on the integrity of God and does not need additional physical evidence to support it. Faith that is based on the living Word of God needs no help or corroborating evidence from the external to support it. It stands complete by itself and in itself is the evidence. It should be enough to fully persuade us that God will perform that which He has promised, without any additional resume from Him. He should not need to tell us to believe His words because of what He did or did not do in the past. His Word is sufficient.
This is the kind of faith that receives great blessings from God. The Apostle Peter summarized this in his second epistle when he wrote, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet 1:7-8).
The Faith of Abraham
The Scriptures tell us that Abraham, the friend of God, had this type of faith; for “Abraham against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”
Abraham was strong in faith and did not walk by sense knowledge, but according to the word of God. He did not consider the physical evidence that was so close to him—his own body, which was as good as dead because of old age, and Sarah’s barren womb. He considered the Word of God only, and so did not doubt.
“He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.”
The passage of Scripture here tells us that Abraham was fully persuaded that God is able to perform what He had promised. Not only was he sure that God could, he was confident that God would perform what He had promised. He was fully persuaded. This is the faith of Abraham, and it is the God-kind of faith. By this, Abraham pleased God, and his faith was imputed unto him for righteousness.
“And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness” (Rom 4:17-22).
Have Faith in God
In Mark 11: wrote about Jesus speaking:
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”.
The context of this passage took place when they returned to a certain place in Bethany. The night before, when they passed that way the Lord, being hungry, had looked for fruit on a fig tree. Finding nothing but leaves, He had spoken to the tree, saying, “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. And his disciples heard it” (Mk 11:14). The following morning, “as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.
And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God” (Mk 11:21-22).
The Lord then continued: “In solemn truth I tell you that if any one shall say to this mountain, ‘Remove, and hurl thyself into the sea,’ and has no doubt about it in his heart, but steadfastly believes that what he says will happen, it shall be granted him.
That is why I tell you, as to whatever you pray and make request for, if you believe that you have received it, it shall be yours” (Mk 11:23-24, Weymouth translation).
What Will You Receive When You Pray?
To confirm and summarize this, the Lord then stated that when we pray, the only things we will have are the things we believe we already received while praying. The Weymouth translation renders this verse thus: “As to whatever you pray and make request for, if you believe that you have received it, it shall be yours.” The only things you are guaranteed to receive when you pray are the things you believe you have received at your closing “Amen.”
Let me repeat this: When you pray, what you’ll receive is not necessarily what you asked for, or what you desire, or what you earnestly pray for, or what you are believing for, but what you believe you have received. This is what the Lord said in the passage above, and we must clearly understand it. Believing is having. This is the operation of the real faith.
The Thomas-kind of faith says “When I see it, when I touch it, I will know that I have it.” Real faith says, “If God says it’s done, then it is. If God says it is so, that settles it. Therefore I rest on His Word even in the face of contradictory evidence.”
If God says I am saved because I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, that settles it. I believe, that’s it, and there’s nothing more I need to do. If He says that “by His stripes I am healed,” I am. If He says that He’s the strength of my life, even though I feel no strength, I know I am. If He says that “God shall supply all my needs,” I know He will do it, even if there is currently no dime in my pocket.
Renounce Sense-Knowledge
Make no mistake about it; sense knowledge will pose a seemingly insurmountable obstacle for you as you dare to walk in faith. It will constantly try to pull you back to make you consider evidence in the outward realm. When you affirm, “By His stripes I am healed,” it will point to the pain in your body. When you assert, “The Lord is the strength of my life,” it will remind you how tired and worn out you are. When you confess, “The Lord shall supply all my needs,” it will calculate and present the current balance in your bank account and wallet. You must constantly and persistently drive yourself to the Word, until all you see is the fulfillment of your need that is already provided in the invisible realm.
God wants His children to walk by faith and not by sight. We are to confess what the word of God has said concerning us, even though we can’t see it. When I believe His Word, which says “By His stripes I am healed,” and I confess it, His Word overcomes every disease in my body and I walk healed in divine health. When I confess, “My God shall supply all my needs,” I see my needs met by His inexhaustible riches. And when I confess, “The Lord is the strength of my life,” weakness disappears and my strength is renewed as the eagles.
Confess What God Says About You
Let’s fill our hearts with what God says we are in Christ Jesus. What we fill our hearts with becomes the confession of our hearts. There is a confession that comes out of our lips. When the confession on our lips perfectly matches the confession of our hearts and both are in line with the Word of God, then we become overcomers who are mighty in faith and prayer. This should be our goal. We must keep feeding on the Word of God, meditating upon it, until it becomes our waking thoughts and the melody of our spirits. Then we’ll unconsciously confess the Word of God.
Many people have a negative confession. They confess what the world says instead of what God says. They make a habit of saying what they are not, so they are not out of place among their peers. They shy away from saying what God says about them, for fear of being considered weird or arrogant. So they imprison themselves by their own words. They are always talking about their weakness, their failings, their lack of money, and their lack of ability, and it happens to them according to their confession. They go down to the level of their confession.
Be It to You According to Your Faith
Be it to you according to your faith, is essentially what the Lord said to the blind man. And again, He said, if you would believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Believing is seeing. Believing is having. Believing celebrates the substance of faith with the glad confession: “It is mine, it says, Glory to God, I have it. I have it now.”
After you have prayed and made your petitions before God, you should immediately begin to act as if you have the thing you requested physically in hand. If the request has to do with healing and health, you should begin to see yourself healed and begin to do what you could not do before. You should begin to think yourself healthy. You should begin to see your need met and see yourself strong.
It is true that what you see is what you’ll think about. The way you see yourself is the way you’ll think of yourself. What you see is what you think, what you think is what you confess, and what you confess is what you have.
God’s Promises are Guaranteed But Not Automatic
God has made eternal promises for us. All His promises are sure. His word is yea and amen. As the Epistle of Paul aptly puts it: “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Cor 1:20).
The promises of God are guaranteed, but it is not automatic that you and I will partake of them. They are there, but you and I have to reach out and take them. We have to appropriate them. We have to claim them before they become operational in our lives.
Enjoy the Promises of God
We must not be like the uninformed passenger who sat in his cabin quietly eating crackers for days on a ship where luxurious meals were included in his ticket, but he didn’t know it. He did not go to the restaurant to claim his food, and he ate like a pauper for days before discovering that he could have had the expensive meals he had been seeing other passengers eating on the ship. By the time he found out, there were only a few days left before reaching the destination and disembarking.
All God’s promises are ours. He made them for our benefit. He did not put them in the Bible to taunt us. He did not put them in the Scriptures just to show us how wonderful they are and then tell us we cannot get them. His purpose for putting them there in the first place is to get them into our hands. This also means they are within our reach. Blessed be God our Father forever and ever.
(Scriptures to meditate on include: Mk 11:23; II Cor 3:18, 3:15-18; Heb 11:27; Joh 20:24-29; Heb 13:5,6; Rom )