Faith is substance. This is evident in the well-known scripture Hebrews 11:1:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Faith is a noun, pistis in the original language. It is something that we possess, that we have been given as a result of our relationship to Christ:
“God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).
“Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ…” (2 Peter 1:1).
We all have faith. And faith is necessary to live the kind of life God desires for us:
“And without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
It doesn’t take much faith to do amazing, even miraculous things:
“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:20).
“If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you” (Luke 17:6).
We all want our prayers answered, and we all probably believe that our faith is strong, at least to some extent, yet we often don’t see our prayers answered. Bad things happen even when we try to exercise our faith. Sometimes, faith just doesn’t seem to work.
What then?
We really have only two choices:
- We base our theology on our experience, and conclude that faith is not effective. Those who believe that faith is effective are labeled “faith people” and most of them are considered heretics. Faith is not enough to move God, because sometimes He chooses to answer prayers, sometimes He doesn’t.
- We base our theology on the Bible, and believe the verses above. We literally take Jesus at His word, because to do otherwise makes Him a liar. We believe that faith is powerful enough, just as Jesus said multiple times. Therefore, if my prayers aren’t answered, then it must be something I’m doing wrong.
Many will shudder at number 2 above, because they believe if it’s something I’m doing wrong, then making the necessary changes would constitute an act of my will, turning my miracle-working faith into a works-based gospel.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
You chose to accept Christ. That was an action of your will. Therefore, we ought to condemn accepting Christ as a works-based action. Yet we don’t. We understand that freely accepting a gift is not works, it is just the opposite: accepting a gift is participating in an act of grace on the part of the Giver.
In the same way, the miraculous events we ought to be seeing in our lives are also not of our own works. Galatians 3:3 and 5 makes it clear:
“Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?”
The rhetorical answer is, as Paul goes on to explain, that the Spirit who gives eternal life as a free gift based on our believing is the same Spirit that helps us continually and works miracles amongst us, also as a free gift.
Whether or not you realize it, we’ve just uncovered one of the primary reasons why people of faith often do not see their prayers answered.
It’s because of their unbelief.
No, faith and belief are not the same thing, and lack of faith is not the same as unbelief. Remember, faith is a noun, it’s a gift you received from God, and it’s your possession. Belief is a verb. Belief is the thing you do. We all have faith, but that faith can be negated by the unbelief in your heart. In other words, you already have faith…you also need to believe in order to experience the miracles of God.
Don’t believe me?
“And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-6).
Even Jesus Himself was hindered by the unbelief of the people. God Almighty, in the flesh, was limited by the unbelief present in peoples’ hearts.
On the other hand, the belief of the centurion was enough to see a miraculous healing:
“Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, ‘Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed that very moment” (Matthew 8:10,16).
Many of us believe God CAN do miracles, and that He has done them for others, but I think the problem comes when we don’t believe that God will do them for us! There are many reasons for this, among them a sense of unworthiness, a sense that it’s something I have to do to move God and I am not qualified or allowed to do, or just ignorance about how faith and belief work.
Well, you can’t claim the last excuse any longer! Begin to believe, simply and literally, the Word of God. Test it, cling to the promises, because they are real and they work. This is the simple gospel message.
At first it may seem like you’re hitting a brick wall. Don’t give up! There are other reasons why our prayers can be hindered, and one of them is spiritual warfare. Our fight is not against other people, but against spiritual principalities (Ephesians 6:10-12). We live on a battlefield, and sometimes there are those who get wounded. So continue to believe what the Bible has to say and just see whether God will come through for you.
If we claim to be followers of Christ, we each must come to the point where, no matter what our experience, no matter what happened the last time we cried out for help, no matter what happened to Uncle George when we prayed for him, no matter what happened to make it look like the Bible cannot be trusted literally, we must honestly admit whether or not we are going to choose to believe the simple straightforward words of Jesus Christ:
“All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23).