I feel pretty sure that every born again child of God desires to pray effectively. I also am fairly confident that most of us go to the Lord in prayer because we are trusting Him to hear and answer. The Bible teaches us that the only way to ensure this is to pray in faith, believing. See Matthew 21:22 for the words of the Master Himself: “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” But the question arises, how do we know our faith is the controlling factor in our heavenly petitions? I have found that a good test of my faith is if I get up from my knees, being assured I have completely left all my requests at the Father’s Throne. If I leave my prayer room with the luggage I came in with, I have defeated the entire purpose.
Matthew 21:22 Meaning
Faith is the prerequisite to bringing our requests to God and leaving them in His capable hands. Here is an Illustration: When we take our clothes to the dry cleaner, we bring them and leave them, expecting to return at the appointed time to retrieve them with the job completed. We do not take a portion back home with us. We do not doubt the capability of that establishment, causing us to keep dropping in to see how it is going. We do not call over and over to check on their progress because we are just not sure of their competency. We have faith that once we have brought them and left them, we will receive them back with the anticipated result having been accomplished.
Remember the friends who brought their paralyzed buddy confined to a mat to Jesus for healing. When the density of the crowds prohibited them from reaching Christ in the house, they climbed up on the roof, made a hole sufficiently large, and lowered him down with ropes in front of the Lord. In faith, believing they dropped those ropes because they were not planning on having to pull the crippled man back up. They did not suggest perhaps they should hang on to one rope or a fragment “just in case.”
In their minds, they had already received the miracle. See Mark 2:12: “And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.”
Dear friend, that is exactly the attitude we must have when we bring our supplications to the Lord in prayer. When we say “Amen” it should be with total confidence that the answer has been received—the miracle has already happened. As David said in Psalm 77:14: “Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.”
There is, however, a magnificent flip side to this. As we let go of the ropes that hinder the full blooming of our faith, God is lowering His divine ropes to rescue us from our predicaments. One day, my dear husband and I were having a conversation pertinent to this topic. He commented that, just like ropes thrown out to a man overboard to rescue him, in the same way, God saves us from drowning in the sea of our need. He pulls us up into His prayer-answering arms of safety.
If we do not believe, we certainly will not wholeheartedly, without reservation, leave, and therefore we cannot expect to receive.
Until we sit down together for our next visit, continue living before God’s face.
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