The Word To Live By: 3-10-26
Phil Waggoner
Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Mark 11:23
The Word to Live By: We are talking about different kinds of prayer, and specifically, the prayer of faith. All types of prayers must contain faith. Hebrews 11:1 says that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The first thing we learn from that scripture is faith is a substance. It’s a spiritual substance that you can’t see, feel, touch, smell, or contact with anything except your spirit. I liken it to radio or television waves. You can’t physically see them, feel them, hear them, etc., etc., but they produce something you can physically see and hear. The substance of faith produces the manifestation of what you believe in your spirit for in your prayers. The prayer of faith is unique in that it is not a prayer of supplication but a prayer of declaration. “This is what I believe in my heart is the direction my life is going …” Jesus had faith strong enough to literally move a mountain. I don’t, but I do have strong enough faith to move a mountain of sickness, poverty, and fear. I do have strong enough faith to live my life in the will of God and when something comes along and tries to get me off that will, to remove it. The key is saying what you believe in your heart and speaking with your mouth. Where does the substance of faith come from? Romans 10:17 tells us. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” The devil is not a creator. He is a liar and the father of lies. He is the god of this world and misleads the Word of God to us with his lies through our senses and thought life. The god/God that you consistently listen to is what you are going to build your faith on. I learned quickly that even though I believed something in my head, it didn’t mean it was in my heart. I had 26 years of believing in my heart that God was the author of the bad in my life as well as the good and there was nothing I could do about it. I learned through the principle of Mark 11:23 the prayer of faith, that I could get what I believed in my head into my heart by quitting feeding doubt and unbelief with what I said and to start feeding my faith with what I wanted to believe. (Again, don’t deny a problem. Attack the problem with your faith. See Romans 4:17-21.) That’s where listening to and meditating on the Word of God comes in. Meditating on the Word of God is not only thinking about it, but speaking it to yourself, especially in situations that go against it. You can change what you believe in your heart by listening to yourself say what you want to believe. Just make sure what you want to believe lines up with God’s will for your life. A good jumping off point is Jeremiah 29:11. I’m trying to get to Mark 11:24 - maybe tomorrow. 😊
Read through the Bible in a year: Matthew 13:1-23; Leviticus 17-18; Proverbs 28;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 10, Mark 7:1-18, 2 Corinthians 9
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160