Ask in Faith

By Dave Earley

I took a recent trip for two weeks of teaching and preaching in Brazil. On Saturday, my hosts invited me for lunch at a wonderful Brazilian churrasco steak house. Near the end of our meal, a young waiter asked if we were pastors and where we went to church. The waiter said he had overheard our conversation and felt he needed to go to church. One of our hosts invited him to come to hear me speak in the Sunday services the next day.

As we discussed the spiritual interest expressed by our waiter, I suddenly had a very clear thought: If he comes to church tomorrow, he will be saved. As we prayed for him, I prayed a simple prayer of confident faith and gratitude for his pending salvation.

The next day, as I prepared to give my fourth sermon of the day, one of my hosts brought the young waiter and his wife and baby to meet me before the service began. As they returned to their seats, I told the pastor standing next to me, “God is working. That young man is going to get saved tonight.”

Even though the message was more about how to do evangelism than how to be saved, at the end of my talk, I gave a salvation invitation. Three men and a woman responded.

I was going to move on, but I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to give the salvation appeal one more time. A teenager and her mother came forward, along with a young man. I could see the waiter and his wife sitting in the back row start to cry. They stepped into the aisle, walked slowly to the front, and stood in front of me—broken and weeping.

I led all the responders in a prayer. Then the pastors dealt with each one individually. The worship band led a song, and the senior pastor closed the service. Afterward, one of the pastors brought the young couple to me. Their tears were replaced with giant smiles of joy. They told me they had been saved.
Prayer and faith played a role.

Faith in Prayer

Does faith make any difference in whether God answers my prayers? According to the Bible, the answer is “yes.” The Bible stresses the importance of faith in powerful prayer.

Our faith plays an important role in God’s work on earth.
Nothing caused Jesus greater disappointment than the lack of faith in His followers. Five times He exclaimed, “You of little faith” (Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8; Luke 12:28). He asked, “Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40) and “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25).

Three more times Jesus placed faith as a condition for God to do mighty works by saying, “If you have faith” (Matthew 17:20, 21:21; Luke 17:6). He also said, “Because you have so little faith” (Matthew 17:20); “Stop doubting and believe” (John 20:27); “Rise and go; your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:19), and “Your faith has healed you” (Mark 5:34; 10:52).

The most interesting comment in the Gospels about the role of faith in miracles involves Jesus’ return trip to His hometown. “He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith” (Matthew 13:58). The lack of faith expressed by the people in his hometown limited Jesus from doing all He wanted to do there. Regarding this lack of faith,

In Mighty Prevailing Prayer, Wesley Duewel stated, “It is absolutely clear that our lack of faith limits God’s freedom of working mightily. It stopped Jesus from using His miracle-working power (Mark 6:5). From the standpoint of omnipotence, God is almighty—His power is utterly unlimited. From the standpoint of His sovereignty, God can do what He will. But from the standpoint of His grace, He has chosen normally to limit His miracle answers to our believing. ‘According to your faith’ (Matthew 9:29), said Jesus.”

Our faith may be required to receive answers to prayer.
James said that if we ask God for wisdom, He loves to give it. But we can’t go back and forth between faith and doubt. We need to ask with faith.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:5–7).

Jesus said that faith-filled prayer can move mountains and lead to answered prayer. “’Have faith in God,’ Jesus answered. ‘Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours'” (Mark 11:22–24).

Referring to Mark 11:24, Andrew Murray writes, “If we only see to it that we do the one thing He asks of us as we pray: believe that you have received; he will see to it that He does the thing He promised, ‘you shall have.’ . . .” (With Christ in the School of Prayer).

Secrets to Having Bold Faith in Prayer

Acquire your faith to receive answers from your faith in the Father.
Andrew Murray again writes in With Christ in the School of Prayer, “The power to believe a promise depends entirely, and only, on faith in the promiser. Trust in the person creates trust in his word.”
To exercise faith in God to answer your prayers, you need to grow your faith in God as a person.

Align your request with the will of God.
“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” (1 John 5:14–15).

J.O. Sanders writes, “If faith is the gift of God, and it is, He will not give it to someone in order to encourage the person to do something contrary to His will” (Prayer Power Unlimited).

Base your request on the promise or promises of God.
Adoniram Judson was a Bible translator and pioneer missionary to the nation of Burma. He went to a place with no known Christians at that time. He endured the untimely deaths of two wives, three children, and several coworkers. He spent two long years imprisoned in a horrible prison. Starving, filthy, shackled, and hanging upside-down much of the time, he barely survived. Still, Judson persevered in his work of preaching and translation with great faith.

At one point he was asked by a friend, “Do you think the prospects are bright for the speedy conversion of the heathen?”

Judson promptly replied, “As bright as the promises of God.”

With bold confidence, he prayed the promises of God. And God responded. After his death, a government survey recorded 210,000 Christians!

Charles Spurgeon was one of the greatest pastors who ever lived. He was known for fearlessly claiming God’s promises and quoting them back to Him. In his book, Faith’s Checkbook: Drawing Daily from God’s Treasury, Spurgeon explains, “A promise from God may very instructively be compared to a check payable to order. It is given to the believer with the view of bestowing upon him some good thing. It is not meant that he should read it over comfortably, and have done with it. No, he is to treat it as a reality as a man treats a check.”

He continues, “. . . he must believingly present the promise to the Lord, as a man presents a check at the counter of the bank. He must plead it by prayer, expecting to have it fulfilled.”

Look for confirmation.
Duewel advises the prayer warrior to recognize that if a promise is God’s promise to you at this time, He will not only deeply impress it upon your heart, but He will also provide confirming indicators. These indicators may include circumstances, the words of others, and a strong sense of peace.

Recognize a prayer burden.
A strong burden from God calls us to pray with confidence that God wants to work. In Prayer Power Unlimited, Oswald Sanders tells of a missionary couple who for many years struggled to make any progress with the people in Three Clan Village in China. Then something inexplicably changed. Spiritual breakthroughs began to occur throughout the village as relationships were mended.

The missionaries did not realize it, but a letter giving the explanation was on the way. Two months later, a letter arrived. It said, “I must write and tell you what happened today. All morning, I could not do my housework because of the burden on me concerning Three Clan Village. So finally, I went to the telephone and called Mrs. W. She said she had been feeling the same way and suggested we call Mrs. J. and all go to prayer together. We did so, each in her own kitchen. We spent the morning in intercession for three quarrelling clans. We feel God has answered.” The date in the diary corresponded exactly with the victory gained in Three Clan Village.

Focus on God’s faithfulness, not your faithlessness.
Our faith is imperfect, often fickle, and tainted with unbelief. But God is faithful to keep His promises. When we focus on Him, faith follows.

Express your faith with words of thanksgiving. Lazarus was dead and had been lying in a tomb for several days. But Jesus offered a simple, yet powerful prayer of faith for him.

“Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out . . .” (John 11:41–44).

Notice that Jesus did not make a request. Instead, He offered a prayer of gratitude for what God was about to do.

I find that when my prayers lack faith, I can change that by shifting my requests from asking God to work to thanking Him because He is working. For example, instead of saying, “Father please provide Luke with the teaching job he needs,” I pray in faith, “Thank you, Father, that Luke is Your son. Thank You for being at work in the matter of his job. Thank You that You have provided.”

Listen to the voice of God.
Every person I pray for to be healed does not get healed. But some do. The difference is that every time I have prayed, and the person was healed, I believe I heard the Lord tell me that He wanted to heal them. When I do not “hear” anything, they may get better, but it is more a natural thing than a supernatural thing.

For example, I prayed with a man about a month ago. The moment I began to pray, I had a definite peace that God would heal him. I just needed to ask God to touch Him—and then thank God for the healing. So, I did. The next day he went to the doctor, and miraculously the medical issue was totally gone.

God is a verbal God. He spoke the world into existence (Genesis 1). Jesus is called the Word (John 1). Jesus’ sheep hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:27). The most effective prayer warriors have learned to hear His voice and follow Him.

–Dave Earley from 21 Keys to Answered Prayer (PrayerShop Publishing 2024). This book is available in print and e-book formats wherever you purchase your Christian books. You’ll get it the quickest, and likely the cheapest, at prayershop.org. Multiple copy discounts are available at prayershop.org.