Decide Decisively

Decide Decisively

According to your faith be it done to you. Matthew 9:29, ESV

TWO BLIND MEN FOLLOWED JESUS, crying out for him to have mercy on them. When he finally gave them his attention, he asked the men if they believed he was able to heal them. We might wonder what would have happened if they had said no; in another situation, a candid confession of partial faith still resulted in healing (Mark 9:17-27). But these men wouldn’t have cried out to him in the first place if they weren’t convinced of his power. So he affirmed their faith and said they would receive in accordance with it. They got what they believed they would get.

We’re reluctant to claim that much responsibility. We don’t want God’s work in this world to depend on whether we maintain our faith or not. On a grand scale, it doesn’t, of course. He is still going to accomplish his purposes. But will he accomplish them in your life? Sometimes our faith is a necessary invitation for his work. There are things that will or will not happen based on whether we believe them. That’s how his Kingdom works.

In every situation of praying in faith, then, we have to make a decision, and it can’t be a tentative one. We have to decide whether we believe and then stick with that decision. That doesn’t mean we harden our hearts and refuse to be redirected even by God himself. Sometimes we get it wrong and need to realign with his purposes. But when we base our prayers on his revealed will and attach our faith to his promises, we have to stick with them until he directs us otherwise. Circumstances, opposition, challenges, obstacles, and deceptive words have no bearing on our agreement with God. We have no business waffling on the things he has said he will do. If faith is the currency of his Kingdom and the key to answered prayer, then it’s nonnegotiable. We have to pursue it relentlessly and rest in it when we have it.

When you pray, do you believe or not? Make that decision emphatically, purposefully, decisively. Then pray with conviction. According to your faith it will be done to you.

He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.