Page 72 - The Divine Quest

The Divine Quest Page 69

The Prayer of Faith

Beginning at the wedding of Cana, the disciples of Christ had seen Him perform one
miraculous work after another. He had turned the water into wine. He had healed
the sick. He had cast out devils. He spoke with a wisdom that was divine in origin,
and the disciples rightly connected all of these things with the prayer life of Yahshua.
It was the Father working through Christ that performed all of these things (John
14:10).

It is understandable then, that the disciples should come to Christ and ask Him to
teach them how to pray. The saints today also need to know how to pray if they want
to see God working through them in power. We have mentioned that there are many
wrong ideas about faith today, such as is evidenced in the prosperity doctrine which
I would define as ‘conceive it and believe it’, but others have called ‘name it and claim
it’, or a host of other unflattering titles. Where do such false doctrines arise from?
Often they arise from taking a single Scripture in isolation, without comparing
Scripture to Scripture to get the full understanding of the mind of God. One such
Scripture is as follows.

Matthew 7:7-8
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened
to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who
knocks it will be opened.”

Let us suppose that these two verses are the only verses in the Bible that give
instructions about prayer. If we were to take them by themselves we could well
support the conceive it and believe it doctrine, and we could proclaim to all the saints
that they can have anything their heart desires if they will simply ask, seek and
knock. No other stipulations are listed here, so we could teach that the saint will
receive a positive answer to their prayer every time that such a prayer is uttered.

Some in the prosperity camp do teach such a thing, and this passage above is often
cited, yet some go a bit further by adding one more verse as a requirement, for they
realize that not every prayer is answered. If every prayer is not answered, then it
would be quickly obvious to all who have the least discernment that something is
wrong with this teaching. Therefore, the following Scripture is cited.

Matthew 21:22
"And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."