In Defense of the Faith

How to “Believe That You Receive” When Praying

Question: Christ promised, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark:11:24Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
See All...). There are no conditions stated such as abiding in Christ, being obedient, asking according to God’s will, or anything else. Do you know any Christians for whom this promise is fulfilled in that that they always get whatever they ask for in prayer? I’ve never met one for whom that is true. How can you explain away Christ’s failure to fulfill this promise?

Response: One must first of all understand exactly what “believe that ye receive them” actually means. Christ’s phrase “when ye pray” is all-important. Prayer is to God. Obviously, then, if the prayer is going to be answered, God must answer it. So to “believe that ye receive them” means to believe that God will grant or do that for which one is praying. Clearly, to attempt to believe that God would do anything that one is not certain is His will would be presumptuous.

            On that basis, then, could one have whatever one desires by believing that one receives these things? Is there some mysterious power of the mind that is activated by “believing” and that literally creates what one “believes”? That idea has been at the heart of occultism for thousands of years. The teaching was popularized in the secular world by a variety of motivational speakers and writers such as Claude Bristol (The Magic of Believing, etc.), Denis Waitley (Seeds of Greatness, etc.), and others. The same belief in the magical power of belief has even become popular in the church beginning with the writings of Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking, etc.) and the many books on The Power of Possibility Thinking by Peale’s chief disciple, Robert Schuller. The latter states:

                        Through possibility thinking…[an] amazing power will unfold in your life…[Schuller, Peace of Mind through Possibility Thinking (Spire Books, 1977), p. 14].  You don’t know what power you have within you…! You make the world into anything you choose! Yes, you can make your world into whatever you want it to be! [Schuller, “Possibility Thinking: Goals,” an Amway Corporation tape.]

So we can take God’s world and reshape and remake it to whatever we wish through possibility thinking? Here we have a serious and deadly contradiction. If what we pray for comes to pass because we believe it will, then God has no real part to play in the answer to our prayers. Instead, we are producing the results by the power of our own belief.

There is a vast difference between believing that what I’m praying for will happen because I believe it will happen and in believing that God will make it happen in response to my faith in Him. To recognize this difference (which is as wide as the distance between heaven and hell) is crucial in understanding the promise of Jesus quoted above.

If believing does not in and of itself create the answer to prayer, might it not at least cause God to answer the prayer? It takes a little thought to realize that we cannot make God do something merely by “believing” He will do it. If we could, then we, rather than God, would be in charge of our lives and even of the entire universe.

Genuine faith (in contrast to the power of belief) is a gift of God (Ephesians:2:8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
See All...). We can only conclude that Christ was speaking of true faith in God. When God gives the faith to know for certain that He is going to grant our request, then and only then can we believe that we receive our request from Him. Wonderfully, we find that our desires more and more coincide with His will.