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Our faith in God’s promise to hear and answer our prayers (see 1 John 5:14-15) must have solid footing because Satan constantly assaults us with doubt that our prayers matter. His goal is to get us to quit. God’s goal is to get us to persist in prayer and to do so with faith:
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (James 1:6-8).
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James is talking about asking for wisdom here, but unwavering faith applies to all requests we bring before God.
Humans have an innate ability to have faith – to a certain degree. We get in a car in faith that it will start, won’t quit, and will take us where we need to go. We board buses, trains, and planes in faith that they have been well-maintained and have reliable operators that get us safely where we need to go. The list of examples of where we employ faith in daily living is endless. Then we have “saving faith” (see Romans 10:17), by which we believe the gospel to be true for us and respond by surrendering our lives to Christ.
Prayer, and in particular intercessory prayer, by which we believe that God has ordained to accomplish great things by the kingdom-sized prayers of His people, requires a deeper, abiding faith. That level of faith needs a footing with the solidity of bedrock – hard, solid, unbreakable rock you can build a house on.
For us who believe in the power of prayer, the bedrock of our faith consists of four attributes of God:
- He cannot lie.
- He is omnipotent.
- He is omniscient.
- He is omnipresent.
God Cannot Lie
Hebrews 6:17-18 tells us, “Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
We root our prayers in the knowledge that God cannot lie and that, therefore, all the promises He gave in Scripture to hear and answer prayer are true and immutable – meaning that He will never change His mind.
God Is Omnipotent
Omnipotent is a fancy theological word that comes from the Latin “omni” (all) and “potens” (able/powerful). The Scripture points us to this attribute through verses like Jeremiah 32:27: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me? If you want to get a sense of how powerful our God is, remind yourself by watching this 1977 video entitled “The Powers of Ten.” It is a secular video, but it vividly illustrates that the God Who made ant-sized people in His image created the entire universe, which is far bigger and consists of greater forces than the human mind can survey or comprehend. It is mindbogglingly beautiful to think that He puts His unsurpassed power at the disposal of His intercessors because He has chosen to work His wonders through our prayers!
God is Omniscient
Another fancy term. We now know that “omni” means “all.” “Scient” is also Latin, and it means “knowing.” God is all-knowing. That is why Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 6:8, “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” Intercessors rely heavily on the omniscience of God because we often present situations and concerns to Him that are complex, uncertain in outcome, outside of human control, and national or global in size – in other words, too big to wrap the human logic of our brain around. Not to mention that our struggle in prayer is not against flesh and blood but against the forces of darkness in the heavenly places, where we need God’s superior knowledge to pray the right things (See Romans 8:26). Corrie Ten Boom once said, “There is no panic in heaven. God has no problems, only plans.” He does not look down on our earthly messes and says, “Oops, that didn’t go as planned. Gotta fix that quick!” Our faith rests in believing that He knows all things and guides our intercession through that knowledge. We tap into it by acknowledging that we don’t know the right things to pray and asking the Holy Spirit to guide us.
God is Omnipresent
The omnipotence and omniscience of God are immediately available to us because of a third “omni” – His omnipresence. He is the only Being in existence Who is everywhere at the same time. Angels can’t do that, and evil spirits, including Satan Himself, certainly can’t. They are location-bound and usually work in and through people. But God is everywhere in the universe all at once, employing His omnipotence and omniscience. That is why we can pray about global situations and expect immediate action from the throne of grace. Paul gives us a glimpse of what the omnipresence of God means for us in Ephesians 4:6, where he says that there is “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Think about it for a moment: The Father, Who is present in us through the Holy Spirit, directs us to pray for a situation hundreds or thousands of miles away and delivers an instantaneous answer there! Not only does He know the situation because He is present there, but He is also able to work in it by His power. If God were location-bound, He would not be capable of doing that.
Held Together by Truth and Love
The last three attributes become real to us because of the first: the absolute truth that God cannot lie and that there are no mistakes, untruths, or partial truths in the Scriptures that reveal to us Who He is. God’s truth about Himself holds it all together!
Not only truth but also love. God gives us access to His throne, works through our prayers, and guides us in what to pray because He is a Father Who loves His children. The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Romans 8:31-32, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
It is easy to lose sight of God’s love when you constantly engage in spiritual warfare, which doesn’t feel like love, and are constantly called upon to pray for crises that don’t feel like love either. Then, it is good to remember that God calls upon us to pray because He wants to work His love into every life and situation we affect with our prayers. Moreover, He delights in our prayers because He loves the company of His children and their partnership in His kingdom work.
Father, we thank You for providing us with a bedrock for our faith – Your inability to lie, Your love, Your omnipotence, Your omniscience, Your omnipresence. There is no one like You or above You. Help me increase my vision of Your greatness and my faith in Your willingness to employ Your attributes in the world through our prayers. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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Remco Brommet is a pastor, spiritual-growth teacher, and prayer leader with over 40 years of experience in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the U.S. He was born and raised in the Netherlands and pastored his first church in Amsterdam. He moved to the U.S. in 1986. He and his wife, Jennifer, live north of Atlanta. When not writing books, he blogs at www.deeperlifeblog.com and assists his wife as a content developer and prayer coordinator for True Identity Ministries. Jennifer and Remco are passionate about bringing people into a deeper relationship with Christ. Photo Credit: Timothy Eberly on Unsplash.