Faith and Prayer

At the end of end of March I made a fb post that asked a question. I have searched for the post but now I can't find it, so I can't even quote myself, but it was something like: “Nearly every church service begins with a prayer asking the Lord to be with them in the service. Does the Bible tell us what to look for so we can know whether our prayer was answered?” The only feedback I received was one that rebuked the whole notion of “calling on God to be with us" and dismissed it as “begging God.”

The premise of the objection was, “You don’t need to ask God to do what He has already done. You have Jesus in you. There is no need to ask for Him to ‘come.’” I don’t want to rehash that conversation, but I do want to ask, If God has promised something, does this mean I no longer need to pray about it? If the Bible says it is already mine in Christ, does it show a lack of faith to pray for it?

It has been my understanding of the Christian life that faith and prayer work together. That is, when I see that God has promised something that I am not experiencing, I should pray for it until I have it. I believe we receive from God through faith and prayer and patience. So, my bigger question is, Has my understanding and practice all these years been deficient? 

Here’s more on how I have understood faith and prayer to work.

† You see something in the Word that God has promised you and you determine that you don’t have it. You believe the promise is for you so you begin to pray for it.

† And because you believe the promise, you pray expecting to receive it.

† And because you believe and expect to receive you continue to pray; you persevere in prayer. How long do you continue to pray? Until one of two things takes place: you have it or until God speaks to you about it.

Let me illustrate how I have understood this to work.

In Daniel 9 Daniel understood by books the number of the years... that is, he read Jeremiah and learned that they were to be in Babylon for only 70 years and then to be returned to Jerusalem. He read it, then he looked at the calendar and saw that the time was up.
What does he do with this? Does he begin to announce to everyone, “We’re going home!” No, he began to fast and pray. We’re talking about the purpose of God. God said this is what He was going to do, why does Daniel need to pray for it to come to pass? In his prayer, a great intercessory prayer, he confesses their sins, asks God to forgive them, and to accomplish His purpose. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
By praying and fasting, Daniel was committing himself to praying for this until he saw it or God spoke to him. Turns out, God spoke to him. The angel Gabriel came and gave Daniel the wonderful prophecy of the 70 weeks.

I believe this shows us the ways of God. Behind every work of God there is somebody praying, “Thy will be done.” Someone who sees what God wants to do, has promised to do, and prays it into reality. (That is one part of the way of God, the other is someone to carry out the work. In this case that other person was Ezra, then Nehemiah.)

Then there is Paul and his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Paul says he had a thorn in the flesh. Whatever it was is not the point right now. He says, For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. Three times he asked the Lord to remove it! First time he prayed, nothing. Second time he prayed, nothing again. What do you do when you pray for something and nothing happens? Pray again! You pray until you get the answer or God speaks to you about it. So Paul prayed a third time. Then the Lord spoke to him, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. From that moment on Paul had a new attitude toward this thing, Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. This is a wonderful and rich passage, but my application of it now is, Paul prayed until God spoke to him.

This has been my practice and my teaching – When you discover something in the Word of God, something that God promises or has provided in Christ, and when you see that you do not have that, you begin seeking God for that grace, in faith, with repentance and confession. And you pray until you have what God has promised.

A friend of mine has a blog he calls History Makers. In one of his posts he wrote about the “Hallelujah Lasses,” “about half-a-dozen young women” from the Salvation Army. They went “among the lowest classes in the town, and they have succeeded in the most remarkable manner... They have got such a hold upon the masses as to tame some of the worst of the characters. A thorough transformation has been effected in the lives of some of the most thoughtless, depraved and criminal.”
What can have enabled these Salvation Army girls to achieve such breakthroughs? A total conviction of the power of Jesus' redeeming blood to save even the worst, together with the freshness of the Holy Spirit's filling (for which Salvationists spent whole nights of prayer) kept them pressing into territory where other feared to go, and expecting results.”

As I have said, this has been my understanding. When you see that you lack something that God has promised and provided in Christ, you believe Him for it and because you believe you pray and seek God until you have what He promised. His promise is what give me confidence to pray for it. His promise is what moves me to expect to receive it. His promise is what enables me to pray until. These are not perfunctory or superficial prayers, but prayers offered in faith.

This is how I have understood the Christian life. Has my understanding and practice all these years been deficient?