"And whatever you ask for in prayer, having
faith and [really] believing, you will receive." Matthew 21:22
"Only it must be in faith that he asks with
no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting)...For truly, let not such a person
imagine that he will receive anything [he asks for] from the Lord," James 1:6 and 7
The two verses above simply express the
foundation of effective prayer. How
often would we hear the following spoken to us if the Lord were standing nearby
as He was with His disciples:
"O you of little faith, why did you
doubt?" Matthew 14:31
How easily the foundation of effective prayer is
eroded by doubt or unbelief.
There are the times that we pray thinking that we
are believing. In the back of the mind,
however, we are harboring thoughts of unbelief:
"Lord, deliver this person from the evil that has him/her
trapped." "You know, this
person is in so deep for so long, there's just no way that they could ever get
out of it now. Hope they do,
though."
We need to pray this most important prayer from
the Gospel of Mark:
At once the father of the boy gave [an eager,
piercing, inarticulate] cry with tears, and he said, Lord, I believe!
[Constantly] help my weakness of faith!
Mark 9:24
