power Archives • Knowing God and His Ways

Faith grows when you believe in the power of prayer and faith.

I once heard someone criticize a Bible teacher for “having faith in faith.” In other words, the critic concluded that the teacher in effect had confidence in his faith apart from God. Perhaps the critic felt the teacher was even exalting faith above God, that to get what one wants, God’s will or involvement are not an issue, that all one needs is to have strong faith and use it in certain ways.

Well, there certainly are ways to abuse the teaching of faith, but believing that prayer and faith are powerful is not one of them. Scripture affirms it explicitly. James 5:16 says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (ESV).

The power of prayer

God says this because he wants us to believe it. It helps your faith when you believe prayer is powerful. It helps your faith not only to know God ultimately is powerful, but also that because of his power prayer secondarily is powerful. The power of prayer is a derived power, but it is definitely powerful.

Peter prayed over the corpse of Dorcas, and she returned to life.

After three years of famine in Israel, Elijah bowed to the ground and prayed atop Mt. Carmel, and a thunderstorm resulted.

When Daniel prayed for understanding, God sent an angel.

The power of faith

Faith also is powerful.

Jesus said, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him” (Mark 11:22–24, ESV).

Similarly, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

So Jesus wants us to believe in the power of faith. Speaking figuratively, he says it is so powerful it can move mountains. It can accomplish huge things.

By faith the teenager David slew the giant Goliath.

By faith Joshua caused the sun and moon to stand still in the sky so Israel could finish the defeat of an enemy in battle.

And by faith Moses pointed his staff toward the Red Sea, and it parted.

The power of prayer and faith is secondary

So it is not wrong to make much of the power of faith and prayer if we acknowledge God as the ultimate source of their power.

For nothing happens apart from him. “From him and through him and to him are all things,” including all answers to faith and prayer (Romans 11:36). Methods cannot accomplish anything apart from God.

When we recognize the power of our prayers and faith to move mountains, we are like David, who trusted in God to give him victory over Goliath but also chose his weapons carefully. Saul tried to help David by giving him his armor and weapons. David tried them out and realized they would not help him because he had no training or experience with them. Instead he stayed with the weapons in which he had confidence and experience: his sling and staff.

He ran confidently toward Goliath declaring his faith in God and swirling the sling he had used powerfully in the past to drive predators from his sheep. He knew what that sling could do with God’s help.

We likewise must believe in the power of prayer and faith and what they can accomplish through God.

Two obstacles to faith

The greatest obstacles in Western culture to believing this are a naturalistic worldview and a cessationist theology.

Naturalism believes matter is all that exists, that science can explain everything apart from the existence of God, and that miracles are impossible. The Bible rejects that notion from cover to cover. But even those who believe in God can struggle to escape the effects of a non-supernatural worldview. To do so, they must saturate themselves in Scripture, believe what it says, and recognize the effects of naturalism in their own belief system and expectations.

Cessationism is the belief that the supernatural works narrated in abundance in the four Gospels and the Book of Acts ended when the last of the apostles died. Christians who have cessationist beliefs will have a limited view of the power of faith and prayer.

Life principle

Prayer is powerful, and faith is powerful—through God.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

Because God loves you, he gives you strength and ability to do all that is his will.

During the summer before my senior year in college, I worked for a carpenter building houses. For my first day on the job, I brought my own hammer to work. It was a typical hammer used around the house, measuring about 13-inches long. My job was to pound large, 16-penny, framing nails into 2×4 studs to make walls. I quickly learned that my little hammer was not up for the task. It required way too many strokes to sink each nail, and I would need to sink several hundred nails each day.

My new boss let me use that for an hour or two, to make a point I suppose. Then he walked up, said, “Put that pea-shooter away,” and handed me one of his hammers. It was about four-inches longer, and heavier, and the head had sharp teeth to bite the head of the nail so as not to slip off with a glancing blow. This was a professional-grade framing hammer. It was powerful. I could sink a nail in one-third the strokes.

I had a job to do and needed power to do it. My boss empowered me with a tool.

Kinds of power

Power comes in many forms. I not only needed a professional-grade hammer for my task, I also needed energy, lots of it. I was on my feet all day, lifting heavy stuff, swinging my hammer, climbing ladders and walls. My boss was a furiously hard worker and kept his crew going at a fast pace. So, I needed food and water. How glad I was to be newly married and have a wife who woke up early to make me a filling breakfast of eggs and toast and meat, as well as to make me a big lunch to take to work with a cold thermos of water. I had a job to do and needed power to do it. Nancy empowered me with food and water.

We all need power in other forms. We can’t work successfully, for example, without wisdom, skill, motivation.

Because my new wife loved me, she met my need for food energy. Love meets the need of another.

God’s love behind your power

God loves you, and so he meets your need for power. He empowers you in many ways. He provides abilities and skills, motivations, the infilling of his Holy Spirit, wisdom, coaches and teachers, education, money and capital, tools, technology, hands and fingers that move and legs that can walk and eyes that can see and ears that hear and a brain that can think. In all these ways and more, he meets one of the greatest needs you have: the power to work, act, move, produce, achieve, build, and create.

Unless God in love chose to give you each of these empowering resources, you would be utterly impotent, weak, and incapable. “From him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36, ESV).

The apostle Paul wrote, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient” (2 Corinthians 3:5–6).

Moses told the Israelites, “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17–18).

Again Paul, speaking about what he had accomplished as an apostle, wrote, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

God’s empowering love

King David recognized the connection between God’s love and his empowerment. David needed power for face-to-face combat, beginning famously against Goliath and followed throughout his lifetime with scores of battles. In Psalm 18 he describes God’s help. Notice what these select verses say about the empowering love of God:

“¹ I love you, O LORD, my strength. … ²⁹ For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. … ³² the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. ³³ He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. ³⁴ He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. … ³⁹ For you equipped me with strength for the battle; you made those who rise against me sink under me. … ⁵⁰ Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.” (Psalm 18:1, 29, 32–34, 39, 50)

In another Psalm he again connects God’s empowerment with his love: “¹ Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; ² he is my steadfast love” (Psalm 144:1–2).

In his love, God met David’s need for strength and skill with a sword, shield, bow and arrow.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We might proudly rely on ourselves. We might boast and take credit for what power we have. Paul told the Corinthians, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

God’s way: God gives us every sort of power we need for what he wants us to do, if we will rely on him through prayer, have faith, and follow his wisdom. He is the vine, and we are the branches (John 15:1–7).

Life principle: I can do all things through him who lovingly strengthens me (Philippians 4:13 with “lovingly” added).