PRAYER: FAITH OR HOPE?

In the average church congregation where prayer is just another part of an extensive programme, not the most important part of the congregation’s life, there is a need to ask the question “do we pray in faith or in hope.”

I am personally aware that a lot of praying is done on the basis of hope, not faith. We prayer because it is the expected thing to do and often in response to that fact that it is part of the programme of the church.

In the meeting we might pray and ask God to bless all that we do. Whether he does or not does not seem relevant. As long as we have gone through the programme decently and in order we are sure that God has blessed us. The fact that nothing happened...ah well you win some you lose some. We might prayer for a situation and mouth some fairly innocuous and vague request for something to happen.

Many times we ask God to do what he has already promised what he would do in his word. How many times have you heard a person pray “Lord, be with us at all times?” when his word says that he will never leave us or forsake us?

Therefore, why do we feel the need to ask God to do what he promised to do? Doesn’t that make God a liar or suggest that we doubt that he keeps his promises?

Very often we keep our praying vague and general then it doesn’t matter too much if our prayers don’t receive a response. We did out bit so that is all that can be expected under the circumstances and having prayed it builds up our brownie points before God and the congregation.

Maybe we have not had any scriptural teaching about the purpose of prayer so the best that we can do is to pray in the hope that God will answer with the end result that we don’t really know much about the end result.

What does the scripture say about praying? There are many verses that are relevant but I will deal with one in the book of James where it says “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Note not “maybe” or “perhaps.” In other words he gets answers. In that case, it is a prayer of faith not hope.

The prayer of faith is one that has faith not in faith or faith in your own ability. It is a prayer that has faith in God’s word. In other words, he will do what he said he will do. The prayer of hope cannot access that certainty because it is an ‘if’ or a ‘possible’ or a ‘maybe.’

That sort of prayer never achieves anything and is not much more than a religious ritual.

Faith that motivates us to believe what God says is the most exciting experience one can have because that faith is the one that brings God into action on ours and others behalf. It is that faith which shows the world that he is the God who is supernaturally there and can change the course of history.