Confident Praying

Matthew 17:14-21 (NKJV)
14  And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying,
15  "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.
16  So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him."
17  Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me."
18  And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.
19  Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?"
20  So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
21  However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."

Jesus rebuked the disciples for unbelief. Then He built them up telling them what just a little faith could accomplish. What is faith? The writer of Hebrews describes it this way;

Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

What does the word faith mean? It means "confidence, assurance, trust, hope." Let's investigate this a little further.

Do we have confidence in God? I mean bonafide confidence in Him. In every situation. In every season. In everything. Now that it easy to affirm. It is easy to say. It is even easy to write. Is it true in our souls? Living with confidence and praying in confidence is much harder. When push comes to shove do we really have confidence? To put it another way, do we have genuine faith? Unbelief and doubt are always trying to barge their way in crippling our confidence.

Meditating on these questions this morning I asked myself, "How do I get this confidence?" Immediately I thought of a scripture.

1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV)
14  Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

Confidence comes from praying what God wants us to pray. It comes from praying in His will. It comes from praying in ways He wants to answer. One of the key factors in prayer is to determine what God wills to be done. This is the foundation of praying. What does God will? What does He desire? What has He purposed to do?

If we can pray with confidence this will lead to assurance. We will have a peace. Our minds and emotions will be quieted. It will lead to a persuasion, even a conviction, that God is going to answer. We base this on the confidence that we are praying His will. This assurance is a building block on the foundation of confidently praying His will. What next?

If we pray confidently in God's will and with assurance trust will follow. No matter what is before us we will trust Him. We'll believe Him. We'll believe what He says and what He wills. Like a child leaping off the edge of a pool into the waiting arms of his or her father, fear will be overcome. That child looks only at their father and jump trusting He will catch them. It is not different for the child of God jumping off faith edges into the sure arms of our Father.

On top is hope. On that firm foundation of God's will that leads us to pray confidently. On top of the building block of assurance. On top of the building block of trust. Will sit the roof of hope. You could also describe hope as confident expectation.

We can actually pray confidently expecting God to answer. We can show a watching world the tangible evidence of our faith. One day soon I will show you. I will show you provision like we have never known. I will show you ministry results God wills glorify Him. All because of God's will and confident praying.

Today I carry those burdens. Soon they will birth before our eyes into infant miracles. God will be glorified and I will have an even larger platform to testify. I expect them. Stay tuned.