We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Practicing Faith
Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for and the conviction of things not yet seen, based on Hebrews 11:1 as I explained in this post. Practically speaking, this means that you become aware of what you are representing in your imagination as you pray, and that you take care to align it with what you believe to be God’s will.
When you pray for someone who is sick or suffering, imagine God’s will being done “on earth as it is in heaven” by envisioning the person being healed. As you align your vision with God’s vision, you’ll find your heart gets aligned with God’s heart as you long to see his will come to pass and as you partner with God by pushing in that direction in passionate prayer.
When you pray for a couple in a bad marriage, ask the Holy Spirit to help you concretely envision the marriage being restored and encourage this couple to do the same.
When you pray for someone in bondage to something, ask the Spirit to give you a faith-filled vision of that person being set free.
When you pray a blessing on your enemies, ask God to help you imaginatively represent his love flowing over them, to see them being freed from their anger, their hostility, their pettiness, or whatever bondage they may be under.
Jesus said, “According to you faith it will be done” (Matt 9:29). It is magical to think this hyperbolic teaching guarantees we’ll receive whatever it is we’re exercising faith for. There are always multiple variables that affect whatever comes to pass (see post). However, with these words Jesus is emphasizing that the faith we practice day in and day out is the most important of them.
You need not be 100% certain that a belief is true or that something you believe to be God’s will is going to come to pass in order to have faith. You need merely be confident enough to commit to a course of action. And the first act of faith we take is the act of seeing in our imagination that for which we are praying. Envision the world as if your belief is true, and then experience the conviction that motivates you to pray for and act in the world as if your belief is true. In this way, we are living as faithful disciples.
—Adapted from Seeing is Believing, pages 215-217
Photo credit: Thomas Hawk via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC
Category: General
Tags: Faith, Imagination, Prayer
Related Reading
Podcast: Is It Wrong To Pray to Saints?
Greg discusses the risks and issues associated with praying to anyone or anything other than God. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0242.mp3
What Does ‘Your Faith Has Healed You’ Mean? (podcast)
Greg discusses faith, doubt, and healings. Episode 486 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0486.mp3
Why Bart Ehrman Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Christmas (Or Your Faith) Part 6
This is the sixth of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? In this segment, Greg addresses the apparent discrepancies in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew and the implausibility of the idea that they were simply fabricated. We’ve been hearing that people are using…
Tips on what NOT to say to someone struggling with their faith
Neal Fowler via Compfight Here’s a post from a year ago from Elizabeth Esther on What NOT to say to someone struggling with their faith. Historically, the church has been a very unsafe place for people expressing doubts or struggles. Let’s be safer than this. From the blog post: “Don’t throw the baby out with…
Video Q&A: Faith and the Historical Jesus
Greg is trying something new in order to answer more of your questions. He’s going to be taping himself addressing your questions with no polish of any kind: raw and unedited. You’ll notice in this first one that he’s pretty low in the frame of the camera, and we’ll be tweaking this as we go,…
Benefit of the Doubt Is Here!
Benefit of the Doubt is finally here and you should definitely get yourself a copy! Frank Viola interviewed Greg about the book recently and you can read it over on Frank’s blog Beyond Evangelical. In fact, Frank is so enthusiastic about the book that he added it to his Best 100 Christian Books Ever Written list. Wow. Also,…