Truly He Promised

Truly He Promised

I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don’t doubt . . . Matthew 21:21

JESUS SOMETIMES PRECEDED HIS TEACHINGS about prayer and faith with an emphatic phrase: “I tell you the truth” or “Truly I say to you” or, in the old King James, “Verily, verily.” All of Jesus’ words are true, of course, and he hardly needs to add extra force to his promises. But this is like saying, “Really, I promise, this is as sure as it gets.” When he puts the “amen” in front of a statement, the next words out of his mouth deserve extra attention.

Here Jesus emphasizes the importance of having faith without doubting. And while we may agree with this in our minds, our hearts sigh at the thought. If only, we think, realizing that our best efforts at mustering up faith—pure faith with no doubt mixed in—seem to fall short. We want to believe without question, but we often have questions. We want to have absolute assurance, but lingering alternatives bounce around in our minds. Every what if and if only we can imagine show up at inopportune moments in our faith journey. How does Jesus expect us to arrive at this pure, unblemished faith?

Perhaps that’s where our prayers need to begin—not with the object or desire we are praying for but with the faith he gives us to believe it’s God’s will. He will tell us if it isn’t, of course, but he will also tell us if it is. And if he gives us that inward assurance—if faith is something he works into our hearts rather than something we muster up on our own—we can rest there, fully confident that his promise is being fulfilled.

Make that your goal. Pray for the faith to believe, and then, as the Holy Spirit leads, go ahead and enter into the answered prayer as if you are already there. Inwardly live in that answer, thanking God for it and sensing the fulfillment, before the answer enters into your outward circumstances. Your doubts need to be answered before your prayers are, so take them to God. Let him cultivate your assurance, and then rest in it. Truly, he has said that you can.

The promises of God are just as good as ready money any day.