The Role Of Persistence In Faith August 28, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Theology , trackbackThe power of faith is not solely for appropriating God’s promises or for getting our needs met, but also to preserve our values, morals and ethics. Full assurance of faith is a combination of our decision to stand in faith AND the Holy Spirit working in our lives giving us grace to believe .
God gives us grace to become fully assured about His promises and His plan, but not necessarily our plans and our desires; as they may conflict. Being fully assured about God’s faithfulness to bring about His promises and His plan in our lives does not come to the casual seeker.
It takes a combination of both perserverence and persistence to inherit the promises God has birthed through our faith. Read the last sentence again. This means if one door closes, YOU have to knock on the next door and the next and the next until God opens a door.
I know of and have heard many people who say, “if you rally have faith, you need only bring it up once and God knows what you want. Some brothers believe you don’t need to even bring a need up at all. But while theologically I understand where they are coming from (been there, done that) ; this is not a mark of faith, it is a lack of persistence.
You need to keep bringing your requests before God as long as these unfulfilled requests are on your heart. As an example, I had a mother who prayed for me every night at length until she saw we give my life to the Lord. I was raised in the ways of the Lord, and she claimed that promise and then persisted and perservered in prayer. It wasn’t rubbing Aladdin’s lamp once or saying I did my part in raising him , it was heavy on her heart.
The pray once mentality is contrasted by Jesus Christ’s teaching and practice. “Once more he went away and prayed the same thing”(Mk. 14:39) . This is an indication that Jesus repeated his prayer request because his heart was consumed with the matter. Paul indicates praying multiple times about the same issue. The Lord’s Prayer, prays for the Kingdom to come and for His will to be done, our needs both spiritual and physical, and praise to Him and is how he taught His disciples and us to pray as a model.
Real biblical faith is a persistent faith. Notice Jesus told his disciples to keep on esculin and the gift would be given. This is not repetition or psycho-babble. Our words and requests should be with wisdom and courage-note the use of the words seeking and knocking are given as an example of persistence. Persistent prayer demonstrates faith.
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