Prayers that Move Mountains Chapter 1 The Prayer of Faith And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. —James 5:15 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. —Matthew 21:22 Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. —Hebrews 11:6 The prayer of faith is bold and prayed from a sure foundation of faith. The person praying this prayer is assured of God’s will for the situation or issue at hand. They are confident and hopeful, knowing that it is God’s will to answer their prayer. “The prayer of faith has power. The prayer of faith has trust. The prayer of faith has healing for body and soul.” The New Testament church was in the midst of this kind of prayer when they were praying for Peter. Right in the middle of their prayer they heard a knock on the door, and there was Peter. They were in awe. Many other examples of this prayer can be seen throughout the ministries of Jesus, the apostles, and in our lives today. The apostles prayed knowing what the will of God was for the situations they faced. Many believers fear that when we leave things to the “will of God,” somehow the solution, provision, healing, or deliverance they need will not be given. But they don’t know the will of God for them. According to the model prayer that Jesus gave His disciples in Matthew 6:9–11, we are to pray for God’s will to be done. But people “resign their intelligence at that point to the unknown God. . . . It does not say, ‘If it be thy will’ and stop there. There is a comma there, not a period. The prayer is this, ‘Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth’ (Luke 11:2).” I’d say that is a significant difference. Faith in God’s Will When we pray the prayer of faith, we are praying God’s will for how things are in heaven to be done in the earth realm. Here is where a clear revelation of the kingdom is very important. Is there sickness in heaven? Is there lack in heaven? Are there any unsaved in heaven? We must have faith to believe that God wants His will for our health, prosperity, and full salvation to be manifested not only when we go to heaven but even as we dwell on earth. It’s for His glory. When people see that God’s people have His ear and He is answering their prayers, that is a testimony for Him. People are drawn to God when they can see through His witnesses that He is a God who hears, and if He hears, they know He will answer. Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). You have to gain the assurance that is God’s will for you, so when you pray, you will pray with confidence and faith that He will answer you. The Lord wants us to have more faith. When several are praying together for the same petition and one has prayed the prayer of faith, the Holy Ghost will glorify Jesus by witnessing the prayer that is heard. . . . The Lord wants us to know that He has heard us. We need to thank and praise Him for answering and that will help us a great deal when we pray. —William Seymour Wonder-Working Faith There are many different kinds of faith: (1) faith that gets you saved, (2) general faith in whatever appears real to you, (3) faith that God is real, (4) faith that your chair won’t break when you sit in it, and so on. But what I am talking about in this chapter is another kind of faith—a special faith. The Amplified Bible reads, “To another [wonder-working] faith by the same [Holy] Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:9). This faith, also called special faith, is one of the spiritual gifts. Smith Wigglesworth said that you often find that if you will make a step of faith and use your own faith that you as an individual Christian have, when you come to the end of that faith, very often this supernatural faith will take over. The reason it hasn’t happened with a lot of folks is that they don’t first use what they already have. Every believer already has general faith or saving faith, which is also a gift. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” The faith that you are saved by is a gift of God, but it is not one of the nine gifts of the Spirit. Saving faith is given to you through hearing the Word, because the Bible says, “So then faith [saving faith] cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). The faith we are talking about—“special faith”—is something other than general faith or saving faith. It is a supernatural manifestation of the Holy Spirit whereby a believer is empowered with special faith, or wonder-working faith, and it is beyond simple saving faith. This is the kind of faith that you need to be able to move the obstructions and obstacles in your way. Sick- ness, financial strife, abuse, pride, unemployment, bondages, and strongholds of all kinds will not be able to stay in your life when you pray with wonder-working faith. They must go! All you have to do is believe, and nothing will be impossible for you (Mark 9:23). That is special. Special faith will cause you to speak to stubborn demons and say, “I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” (v. 25). Special faith is the miracle-working faith that Jesus had during His ministry on the earth, and He said that we would walk in even greater power and perform greater things than He did. Prophesy to Your Mountain I am reminded of the passage in Ezekiel where God instructed the prophet to prophesy to a valley of dry bones. While Ezekiel had no comparison in the natural that what God was asking him to do was possible, he had an unshakable faith in the God who commanded him. And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.” Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!’ . . . So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over . . . and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. —Ezekiel 37:3–10, emphasis added Can your mountain hear you prophesying to it the Word of the Lord? I challenge you to begin to incorporate the prayer of faith and begin to prophesy to your mountain. Say to it, “Mountain, the Word says that if I believe, nothing will be impossible to me. Mountain, I believe the Word of the Lord. And the Word of the Lord to you today is BE THOU REMOVED and cast into the sea!” Even if you have never seen deliverance, healing, or breakthrough in your life or family before, know that today is a new day and that your faith in the power of God will make the impossible possible for you. Prayers That Release Special Faith I declare that I, like Enoch, have a testimony that I please God through my faith (Heb. 11:5). Because of my faith I am pleasing to God, and He will reward me because I seek after Him diligently (Heb. 11:6). By faith I will sojourn in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, as I am an heir of the same promise (Heb. 11:9). The Prayer of Faith I will forsake any bondage that seeks to entrap me, looking forward by faith and setting my eyes on Him who is invisible (Heb. 11:27). I decree and declare that by faith I will walk through my trials on dry ground, and my enemies will be drowned (Heb. 11:29). I will encircle the immovable walls in my life, and by my faith those walls will fall down (Heb. 11:30). This is an extract from Prayers that Move Mountains by John Eckhardt.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 04:50:09 +0000
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