I have been thinking about faith, the Holy Spirit, prayer, joy, obedience and surrender.
But mostly prayer and faith.
In a class (studying the book of Acts) that I took at Calvary Bible school this summer (or winter in the States), I learned that God delights in giving people specific callings. And in the Bible, He obviously loves specifics–look at His instructions for building the ark, the tabernacle, etc. Pretty much any instruction that Jesus gave in His teaching was very detailed, very specific.
So, if God loves specifics so much, is there anything wrong with praying very specifically for things that look ridiculously impossible?
Okay, so I often hear myself and others say, “I’d love to blah blah blah, but. . .it’s just a dream. I’m pretty sure it’ll never happen”.
I wonder if God cringes when He hears that, because He loves to give us the desires of our hearts. I wonder if our “impossible” desires are never fulfilled because we treat them as desires that would cost too much to fulfill, or as desires that are just too ridiculously ideal and high-class to expect God to fulfill them. We don’t see any evidence pointing the fulfillment of that desire, so we don’t believe it will be fulfilled. Should we have evidence before we boldly ask God to give us the desires of our heart?
Where does faith come into this whole thing? Is it okay to have faith that God can and will move on my behalf if my desire is not clashing with His Word? If we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move a mountain into the sea (Mt. 17:20). “According to your faith be it unto you” is what Jesus told one guy after giving him sight (Mt. 9:28). In Rom. 14:23, one phrase says, “Everything that does not come from faith is sin.” So, if I pray for something when I really don’t believe that my prayer will be answered, is that sin?
Another thing in Acts is that “faith” and “power” were often characteristics that went together, like, “Stephen, full of faith and power, did great works and miracles among the people”. Is that significant? Can the power of the Holy Spirit really work without faith, and vice versa?
Why They Are Laughing 