By Christine Darg

Jerusalem Channel

Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. (Mark 11: 24)

The Holy Spirit has been speaking to me to reinforce the faith message because of the times of great apostasy that we are living in.

In the Last Days, in 1 Timothy 4:1 Paul prophesied a great “falling away from the faith” in terms of sliding into false, heretical beliefs.

For many years I pursued biblical faith and sought to keep the level of my faith as high as possible. I have worked hard on being careful not to allow the words of my mouth to contradict the Word of God. But for the past two years the Body of Messiah has been assaulted with fears, doubts and even unbelief during the pandemic. Sadly, tragically, this has caused a great erosion of faith within the Body of Messiah in many cases.

Now is the time to recover biblical faith because even our Lord asked plaintively in Luke 18: 8,  “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

“Well done good and faithful servant” is a commendation we all long to hear from the Lord!

In this hour may we have childlike faith in the Lord! The story is told in today’s (18 February) classic devotional “Streams in the Desert” about a boy whose grandmother had promised him a stamp album for Christmas. Christmas came, but no stamp album arrived. The boy’s mother was astonished that he nevertheless mentioned to his friends that he had received a stamp album from his grandmother. “But, Georgie, you didn’t get an album from grandmother. Why do you say so?” He replied, “Well,  Grandma said, so it is the same as.” The boy furthermore followed biblical principles by writing to thank his grandmother for the gift, just as we should offer our prayers with thanksgiving to the Lord. His loving grandmother replied that the album she had ordered was not correct so she had returned it; and then she sent money for the boy to buy the appropriate album at a known local source. Grandma had been working while he was trusting, and in due season his faith became reality. Our God also works for us behind the scenes while we wait and trust!

Faith is the key to pleasing God. No one was ever saved by keeping the Law.  In fact, nobody is able, except Jesus, to keep the law. If you try to keep it perfectly, you know you will soon fail on some point. That is why salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Messiah alone; through trusting in Christ’s blood Atonement we are saved and not by our imperfect works. Salvation in every dispensation in the Bible is by grace through faith. Hebrews 11:3 declares, “By faith we understand that the worlds [literally–ages] were framed by the Word of God.”

Hebrews 11: 6 affirms that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” The basis of anybody’s salvation and ability to please God in every dispensation throughout the Bible is (drum roll please). . . . faith.

Furthermore, the gift of faith is available to every believer, and faith is NOW.

Concerning the above verse at the beginning of this blog– “When you pray, believe that you receive the things that you desire, and you shall have them–” we have to come to the conclusion that faith is always NOW.  That is how faith speaks. “NOW faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11: 1) Believing prayer is in the present tense and believes before it sees the expected outcome.
“I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living” (Psalm 27:13).
The Psalmist believed to see; and this level of faith kept him from fainting.
Let us not faint in this hour of testing but be strong in faith, giving glory to God!