Welcome to the line of fire as we continue in the School of Prayer class is now in session. Today, we talk about building our faith in terms of our prayer lives. Obviously, if anything requires faith in our relationship with God, it is prayer.
We are asking him to do things because we believe he is there, we believe he is able, we believe he is good. So, without faith, why would we pray? An atheist is not praying to God because the atheist does not believe God exists. The agnostic is not praying to God because the agnostic does not think we can ever know if there is a God or not. Someone who is just a deist, they believe in some creator who made the universe, but he is non-personal, he does not relate to us, they are not going to be praying to that God. That God is just a distant being with power. He created everything but has no relationship with us. So, we are only praying because we believe or because we want to believe.
Let us talk today about deepening our prayer lives in God. By the way, because it is our goal to infuse you with faith and truth and courage, to help you stand strong on the front lines, we live to put out resources that will help you. If you go to thelineoffire.org, you will find several thousand articles archived along with several thousand videos. Our YouTube channel, The Line of Fire, has I think over 3500 videos, all of them free.
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Click subscribe. If you are blessed by this, tell a friend. These are free resources that we want to pour into. We live to do that. My heart burns to see the Church, to see God's people healthy and thriving, strong in the Lord. That is what my heart burns for. Just as you want to see your kids, your physical kids healthy, you want to be healthy in your own body. You want your spouse to be healthy, your parents, your friends, those you love. You want to be healthy. That is good news.
I went to the doctor. Everything is good. So my heart is burdened, and I believe in harmony with God's heart, a burden that many of you share, to see the Church healthy, to see us come into a place of wholeness and life where people are drawn to our assemblies, whether it is a house church or a mega church. They are drawn into our meetings because there is a health, there is a life, because we ourselves are healthy.
We are not like the world. We are healthy. These are places of life and joy and encouragement and faith and redemption and hope and forgiveness. As we become healthy, the message of Jesus will be more attractive to a hurting and dying world. People will be willing to leave everything to follow Jesus because he is so beautiful and wonderful.
They have seen a reflection of him in us. That is the goal. That is the goal.
That is the goal. Let's get back to faith, building our faith in terms of answered prayer. In your own life, can you remember when maybe believing for $50 was like a mountain? You are working a job, a part-time job.
You are in high school. You are a new believer, and you need $50 to go on some trip with a missions group from the church. Where am I going to get $50? Then you prayed. It came in. In the last minute someone gave me, Hey, do you need a dollar?
That is exactly what I need. I only had $49. Now you are doing ministry and you are believing God for a million dollars to support missionaries working in a famine-stricken part of the world. The way you used to believe for $50, now you are believing for a million.
Maybe you pray for the sick regularly, and in the early days you were intimidated by someone with a headache. Now you have no problem paying for someone that is paralyzed and coming with faith. So we grow. We grow in our faith.
We grow in our relationship with God. Hebrews 11, 6, we all know, most of you know, without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he is, that he exists, and he is a rewarder of those who seek him, a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So effective praying requires faith. Another aspect of faith is deep trust. Do we really trust God or do we leave an open door for human effort or leave open a portion of our heart aside, leave that aside in case God doesn't work? In other words, I am going to pray, but I am not really putting all my trust in you because I don't want to be disappointed. Now you have to determine I am putting all your eggs, all my eggs in your basket, Lord.
Now it doesn't mean you don't go to a doctor. It doesn't mean you don't use financial wisdom. But I mean in terms of where your ultimate trust is. You can't say, well God, I am going to trust you a lot, but not with everything because I could be disappointed.
No, no. I am going to trust you because you are good, you are God, and you are the only one I can fully trust. In other words, I am going to jump out the window into your arms, Lord.
That is what I am going to do. I am going to put all my trust in you. You understand that is a figure of speech.
That is an analogy about jumping out a window. We got that. Okay. Why does God require faith? Why must we believe him? Why doesn't he just answer every need immediately regardless of faith? Because if he began to do that, then any possibility of a relationship with God would break down.
If how we acted towards God didn't matter in terms of receiving answers to prayer, our motivation to know, love, and obey God would be greatly diminished if not eliminated. I haven't eaten. Press the button. God.
He is my celestial buddy. Press the button. Then he is there. That is what would happen if everything was answered instantly.
No. He wants us to learn to trust him. He wants us to get to know him. He wants us to walk through adversity with him. How many of you have gone through things and you say, I never want to go through this again for the rest of my life? I am raising my hand.
If you have been in the Lord long enough, for sure you are raising your hand. But then how many would say, without going through that I wouldn't be who I am today? I never want to go through it again. But that was important in the shaping of my life and deepening my relationship with God. Can you imagine a husband and wife relationship where no matter what the one spouse did, wonderful and cruel, the other spouse would act the exact same way towards the other spouse? In other words, relationships are two-sided and relationships have consequences. So it is important that we trust God and learn to lean on him because that is foundational to a relationship with him. Now, it is not always a lack of faith that causes prayers to not be answered.
It could be disobedience or ignorance or things that we don't understand and which God doesn't always tell us. But faith is critically important. That is why there are so many passages about having faith and believing.
Mark 11, 22 and 23. Have faith in God, Jesus tells his disciples. 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. It will be done. So, as you pray, whatever you have asked for, knowing that you have received it, you will have it. So, there is an aspect of coming to God. It may take days, it may take weeks, it may take weeks, it may take months before you come to that place of absolute faith and assurance. But when you have it, you have it. You know it. It is done. I don't know if you have had that happen in your own life, but I can think back to the times where I knew it is done before the answer came.
I sent out an email to someone. I said, without any evidence of anything whatsoever in the natural, I am telling you the answer has come, the work is done. Watch and see. And the next day, boom, the exact thing we prayed for happened. Or you start praising God. Well, it is, wait a second, there is a famine and a drought, and you have been praying for rain, and it has been months, and there is no rain, and now you are dancing and rejoicing in the open field where you have been praying. That field is just hard like concrete because there has been no rain, and the soil is just like rocks, and you are just thanking God, praising God.
Why? Because you know the answer came. You are praising God before the rain falls, and then when it falls, you are dancing in the rain, but you were dancing before. You were celebrating before because you knew. Oh, I am definitely speaking directly to some of you. I can feel it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, then praise God.
There is nothing you manufacture. Oh, there have been many times when I prayed about something daily because it was so urgent, and I would talk to Nancy. She said, you are still praying. I have not broken through. I have not broken through. When I break through, there is peace. When I break through, there is security. When I break through, I do not care what the outward circumstances say. I know that I know that I know that it is done, and soon enough, everything else lines up.
It is amazing. That is why 1 John 5 says that if we ask anything according to His will, so again, it is in harmony with who He is and His will, if we ask anything according to His will, then we know He hears us. If we know He hears us, whatever we ask, because it is according to His will, then we know we have the petitions.
Many times, I am thanking God long before the answer comes because I know I am praying according to His will, and it is in harmony with His purposes. I am trusting Him and believing Him, and therefore, I can praise Him in advance. Do people go way too far with faith teaching?
Of course. Every good thing in the Bible can get abused and mistaught and exaggerated, misrepresented, of course. There is the cruel doctrine of going up to a sick person. Oh, you are only sick because you do not have enough faith.
There is that abusive thing that is so painful and ugly. But let us not shy away from what the Word says about faith over and over. According to your faith, Jesus says, according to your faith, according to your faith, according to your faith, let us not diminish the importance of faith just because we are taking it to unbiblical extremes.
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So call now 1-800-771-5584 or online at trivita.com. Thanks for joining us as we continue in the School of Prayer talking about growing in our faith. All of God's doors of promises unlock through obedient faith. All of the doors of God's promises, they unlock. What's the key that unlocks faith? Obviously again we've talked about living a life in harmony with God, not living in overt rebellion and evil but living in harmony with God.
Jacob James chapter 1 beginning verse five. 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. 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.
Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. There are a couple of different types of doubts in the Bible broadly speaking. There is the doubt that is the doubt of disobedience, the doubt of having a divided heart, the doubt of when we should be mature we're not.
That's what's being reviewed here. It is the doubt of by now you should be trusting God. By now you should not be so double-minded. Oh can I trust him or not? Will he answer?
Will he not? And there are times in God's loving rebuke when he said to me stop being a boy. Become a man.
Become a man. And that's the rebuke here, being double-minded. There's another doubt which is the doubt of if I'm hurting, I'm struggling, I want to believe. I just don't know how.
I didn't get there. Jude verse 22. Have mercy on those who doubt. Have mercy on those who doubt.
Mark 9, the man with the boy who's having these terrible seizures, this demonized boy. And Jesus says everything's possible if you can believe it. And he says Lord if you can heal my son. Jesus responds if I can. If you can.
If I can? All things are possible and he says Lord I believe, help my unbelief. Sometimes you go to God and it's like okay I believe but I'm struggling.
I believe but I am having doubts. Okay I won't have doubts, I won't have doubts, I won't have doubts, I won't have doubts. It's not going to get rid of the doubts. It doesn't get rid of the doubts.
I'm going to psych myself up. You don't psych yourself up into faith. Faith is spiritual. Faith is not just emotional. Faith is spiritual. You can get all psyched up.
That's the one reason I hate emotionalism. Oh I'm saved in a Pentecostal church. I love the things of the Spirit. I love Pentecostal charismatic worship. I love to fall on my face in worship. I love to fall on my knees. I love to raise my hands.
I love to jump and shout and praise God. I'm all for that. All for it. I'm all for the expression of our emotions to God. All for it. But I'm not for emotionalism.
I hate emotionalism. Working people up. It's getting all stirred. Just like you do at a football game. You know, at a sports event where you get into, come on! Let's run! Let's run! Come on! Come on!
This is the last chance for our team. And everyone starts roaring. Yeah okay it has its place. Gets the adrenaline flowing. But it's just natural. It's natural. Faith is supernatural. And when you work up people in a carnal way to get them revved up in a church service. Right?
They go revved up and supercharged. Yeah! Yeah!
Yeah! It doesn't produce faith. It doesn't produce intimacy. It doesn't produce real connection with God. It produces a momentary emotional high.
And then what happens after? Crash! I really thought I was believing.
No! We just got worked up. So I hate that. But I love using all of our emotions and free expression to God.
And I love being honest with Him. God I want to believe. Everything in me says this is true. But I keep having these doubts in my mind. Lord help my unbelief. And He will.
He will. And you have to ask how important is it to me to be in good relationship with the Lord? It should be number one in our lives. If we're really born again. If our sins are really forgiven. If the Gospel is really true. And it is. Then this should be the number one priority of our lives.
And everything else flows out of it. You know if you're working a full-time job 40 hours a week it's unlikely on top of that that you're going to have another 40 hours to pray and live your normal life and do other things. It's unlikely you're going to be able to do both. But your whole heart attitude should be relationship with God comes first. Let me go back. Talking a lot about marriage, spouses in recent broadcasts because we've been talking about relationship with God. Remember when you fell in love. You say what's that feeling? I've never fallen in love. Okay I pray the day I'll come for you with the right person.
But when you fell in love you just you thought about the person all the time. And you had maybe you know a three-minute window at work. Hey how you doing? Okay I'll see you. Talk to you later. Bye bye. Bye bye. You thought about each other all the time.
It may have different expressions based on your personality. But that person was with you all the time. And they're on your mind all the time.
And if you had to go away for a few days to see them again. Well we have relationship with God. And in that sense no matter what we're doing he can be on our heart. He can be on our mind. And we grow in faith in many different ways. Obviously spending time with him which we've been really talking about a lot this week. Spending quality time with him. But how about this?
How about journaling prayers and answers to prayer? How about that? Because many many times we forget that God answered. The thing went away.
It was impossible. It's never going to go away. It's never going to change. We pray and it goes away. The healing comes. The sickness leaves.
The financial crisis is averted. The spiritual breakthrough comes. And we just live our lives forgetting that wait wait wait that was a miracle. That was an answer to prayer. There was divine intervention.
Maybe it didn't happen in one split second. But whoa now I look back God that's a prayer I prayed. I've been stunned over the years to go back and see prayers I was praying for years.
Like whoa that was that was really answered beautifully wonderfully. As I was writing my life story a tribute to the Lord for the first seven years living in the line of fire. How God changes. What's this sometime? How God changes rebels into revivalists and broken people into world changers.
I think that's basically the subtitle. And just just my tribute to the Lord for what I've seen him do and encouragement to you. All things are possible. You never know what he could do through a yielded life. Wow what a God we serve. But as I was going back and recounting stories and going back to my journal and finding specifics and entries my own faith was built.
Sharing the story of God's faithfulness in my life with others built faith. So you journal it. It's like wow that's an answer to prayer.
Maybe you have something where a page and you have a little bit on the margin. We have all the prayers you've prayed and when you've been praying them each new prayer or it's repeated prayer or something. We're journaling on computer. You know I've got all my prayers.
I don't mean every prayer I pray every day but the major prayers that I'm praying. I'm journaling them. And then you go back and look.
It's like whoa here are the answers. Maybe journal that. Maybe have another separate journal where you just write down answers.
Whatever way you remember these things. And then rehearse it. Maybe tell your kids if you've got kids about the faithfulness of the Lord. Tell others.
Tell others. So you spend time with God. Get the word in your heart and mind heart and mind heart and mind heart and mind deeper deeper deeper deeper growing in faith. The more you read the word the more you get in your heart and mind the more faith will come.
Then quality time in his presence. Then journaling answers to prayer. Then giving thanks for those answers.
And then sharing those testimonies with others. Your faith will be built. One pastor with a very large church and ministry told me when they have leadership meetings they spend the bulk of the leadership meeting first testifying to what they've seen the Lord do in their lives or through them in the previous weeks since the last meeting.
And then when that's done then they get on with the business. And one other thing about growing in faith is is learning instant obedience. When the Lord taps you on the shoulder and you know it's him act on it.
And if you do then you see him act it builds faith all the more. All right next broadcast we're going to talk about taking refuge in God taking refuge in God. I taught in the late mid to late 80s early 90s. I taught a lot on prayer and intercession put together tons of notes and then turn them into full-length classes and then those classes more detailed notes were written out and and and now just going back pulling out some of those notes and going back to some of these themes. It's ministering afresh to me. I pray it's ministering to you as well. Remember get our free digital frontline newsletter once a month go to thelineoffire.org click subscribe thelineoffire.org click subscribe.
This is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for tuning in. Just a reminder that we are listener supported. If we have been a blessing to you if you're being enriched in the word and word and prayer in your own walk with God through this broadcast then stand with us so that we can reach many many more and bless many many more. Together friends we're making a difference. So go to thelineoffire.org thelineoffire.org and click donate.
