A Gospel Snapshot: Do We Use Our Faith the Way God Intends? Do We Pray In Faith?

We often don't use our faith the way God wants us to in his New Testament Kingdom. We often think we are praying in faith, but in reality we may not be.

We immediately think that our faith should be able to change worldly things that we want to see changed. We want to have a better life. We desire prosperity. We want to be healed, or see someone else healed. We want to see the new job or promotion.

I sometimes joke that we pray to see Aunt Alma get
remarried, or Uncle Zeb to be healed, even though they are both over 100 years old. After our so-called 'faith' falls off a cliff a few times, we begin wondering if God is for real. After all, isn't he all powerful and loving? If he loves me, shouldn't he use his power to help me? - to do what I want? - to see my life become better?

The Apostle Paul talks about not mixing spiritual things with natural things (I Cor 2). Yet, this is exactly what most of us do. We try to use our spiritual faith to bring natural, earthly change - always in the form of some type of a better life.

God is not opposed to us having a better life. Jesus came to give us abundant life (John 10:10). But is God's number one goal to keep us happy, content, overly-fed and constantly satisfied? If this was what prayer gained, we would never desire heaven.

Jesus promises us problems in this life. He promises us we will be offended by people. He says we will suffer. We all have hurts, heartaches, setbacks fears and doubts.

We think our faith should influence God to change these things Jesus promised us that we don't like, so we don't have to endure them, and so earth becomes more like heaven. We don't usually see this happen, do we?

When Jesus and Paul speak of New Testament faith, it is most often concerning direct contact, connection, and relationship with God and his Kingdom: "Seek first the Kingdom of God" - "The just shall live by faith - "Know God, the power of his resurrection, . . . "

Our faith is most often NOT about getting Aunt Alma married or Uncle Zeb healed. Praying these petitions has a place, but they should not be first place.

Human faith is mainly for the purpose of developing trust and reliance on God. It is more of a RESPONSE to God than it is an INITIATION instructing God to do something for us. Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2). Do you let him Author your faith? Or are you too busy trying to write and author it?

Faith is more diverse than this. We should pray for Uncle Zeb (I'm not so sure about Aunt Alma). But we must put first things first, and realize two things: (1) we are not God, and (2) earth is not heaven. If we don't put first things first, we're going to find our so-called 'faith' falling off a cliff more often than not.