Mark 11:24

Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe.

When you are confronted with a matter that requires immediate prayer, pray until you believe God—until with wholehearted sincerity you can thank Him for the answer. If you do not see the external answer immediately, do not pray for it in such a way that it is evident you are not definitely believing God for it. This type of prayer will be a hindrance instead of a help to you. And when you are finished praying, you will find that your faith has been weakened or has entirely gone. The urgency you felt to offer this kind of prayer is clearly from self and Satan. It may not be wrong to mention the matter to the Lord again, if He is keeping you waiting for His answer, but be sure to do so in a way that shows your faith.

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

When my little son was about ten years old, his grandmother promised him a stamp collecting album for Christmas. Christmas came and went with no stamp album and no word from Grandma. The matter, however, was not mentioned, until his friends came to see his Christmas presents. I was astonished, after he had listed all the gifts he had received, to hear him add, “And a stamp album from my grandmother.”

After hearing this several times, I called my son to me and said, “But, George, you didn’t get a stamp album from Grandma. Why did you say you did?”

God is speaking about something immediate in this verse. It is not something He is going to do but something He does do, at this very moment. As faith continues to speak, God continues to give. He meets you today in the present and tests your faith. As long as you are waiting, hoping, or looking, you are not believing. You may have hope or an earnest desire, but that is not faith, for “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). The command regarding believing prayer is: “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). We are to believe that we have received—this present moment. Have we come to the point where we have met God in His everlasting now? A. B. SIMPSON

True faith relies on God and believes before seeing. Naturally, we want some evidence that our petition is granted before we believe, but when we “live by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7), we need no evidence other than God’s Word. He has spoken, and in harmony with our faith it will be done. We will see because we have believed, and true faith sustains us in the most trying of times, even when everything around us seems to contradict God’s Word.

Oh, the victories of prayer! They are the mountaintops of the Bible.

They take us back to the plains of Mamre, to the fords of Penie l, to the prison of Joseph, to the triumphs of Moses, to the victories of Joshua, to the deliverances of David, to the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, to the holy story of the Master’s life, to the secret of Pentecost, to the keynote of Paul’s unparalleled ministry, to the lives of saints and the deaths of martyrs, to all that is most sacred and sweet in the history of the church and the experience of the children of God.

Have faith in God. Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.—Without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.