Mark 9:23

The “everything” mentioned here does not always come simply by asking, because God is always seeking to teach you the way of faith. Your training for a life of faith requires many areas of learning, including the trial of faith, the discipline of faith, the patience of faith, and the courage of faith. Often you will pass through many stages before you finally realize the result of faith—namely, the victory of faith.

Genuine moral fiber is developed by enduring the discipline of faith.

Our unbelief is the greatest hindrance in our way; in fact, there is no other real difficulty as to our spiritual progress and prosperity. The Lord can do everything; but when He makes a rule that according to our faith so shall it be unto us, our unbelief ties the hands of His omnipotence.

Yes, the confederacies of evil shall be scattered if we can but believe. Despised truth shall lift its head if we will but have confidence in the God of truth. We can bear our load of trouble or pass uninjured through the waves of distress if we can gird our loins with the girdle of peace, that girdle which is buckled on by the hands of trust.

Dear Christian, remember to take good care of your faith, for faith is the only way to obtain God’s blessings. Prayer alone cannot bring answers down from His throne, because it is the earnest prayer of one who believes that leads to answers.

Faith is the communication link between heaven and earth. It is on this link of faith that God’s messages of love travel so quickly that even before we ask, He answers. And while we are still speaking, “he hears us” (1 John 5:14). So when the connection of faith is broken, how will we obtain His promises?

Being not weak in faith, [Abraham] considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb; he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.

Is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?—If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Prayer takes the people to the Bank of Faith, and obtains the golden blessing. Mind how you pray! Pray! Make real business of it! Never let it be a dead formality! People pray a long time but do not get what they are supposed to ask for because they do not plead the promise in a truthful businesslike way. If you were to go into a bank and stand an hour talking to the clerk, and then come out again without your cash, what would be the good of it? CHARLES H. SPURGEON

Have you ever given God the chance to answer the Prayer of Faith? Do not let us lose our last chance of believing by waiting till the dawn has broken into day! LILIAS TROTTER

Who can help but admire those brave Levites! They carried the ark of the covenant right into the water, for the river was not divided until “their feet touched the water’s edge” (v. 15). God had promised nothing else.

God honors faith—stubborn faith—that sees His PROMISE and looks to that alone. We can only imagine how bystanders today, watching these holy men of God march on, would say, “You will never catch me running that risk! The ark will be swept away!” Yet “the priests . . . stood on dry ground” (v. 17). We must not overlook the fact that faith on our part helps God to carry out His plans. Be willing to come to the help of the Lord.

By his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him.

Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.

I seldom have heard a better definition of faith than that given in one of our meetings, by a sweet, elderly black woman, as she answered a young man who asked, “How do I obtain the Lor d’s help for my needs?”

In her characteristic way, pointi ng her finger toward him, she said with great insistence, “You just have to believe that He’s done it and it’s done.”