Introduction
Christians are encouraged to pray with boldness and confidence, but that assumes the basis of those prayers is rooted in the character and promises of God. Christians are called to persevere in prayer and endure the hardships that inevitably come from following Jesus, trusting that what Jesus promises is worth it. Hebrews 10:36 says, "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised." Our endurance will depend on our longing for what is promised, and those who want what God offers keep following Jesus until they obtain it. This kind of boldness will not come easily, and it will often be tested harshly. As such, Christians must carefully consider how to rightly use God's promises. It is not enough to simply parrot what God has said without understanding; the promises of God must be wielded like a sword against sin and Satan (Eph 6:17). If we don't keep God's promises in mind we will miss out on the fullness of what God offers to His children. But if we wrongly interpret and apply what He has promised we can end up cutting ourselves by accident and injure our faith. So how do you rightly use God's promises? First Things Faith is trusting, and it is trusting God and His Word specifically (Rom 10:17). Faith is the conviction of things promised but currently unseen (Heb 11:1), and faith is the confidence God is fully trustworthy and capable of doing exactly as He promised (Rom 4:20-21). Therefore, the first thing to remember is that faith must aim to believe what God has actually said, not settle for what we think He said. And so there are two ditches to avoid in order to remain on the path of faith: unbelief and presumption. Unbelief rejects what God has said, whereas presumption focuses on what God did not explicitly say. Unbelief looks at what God has promised and finds reasons to dismiss it as wrong or irrelevant. Presumption goes beyond what is written, or selectively uses what is, and trusts things differently than how God revealed them to be. Both unbelief and presumption fall short of the command to live by faith. Biblical faith hears what God says, believes it, embraces it as good, and acts on it--and the key part is the acting on it. There is no situation where someone can truly have faith but then fail to act. Jesus points this out plainly in Luke 6:46-49 when He distinguishes between the man who hears Jesus' word and does them from the man who hears His words but does not do them. Jesus commends the man who acts on Jesus' word, and promises safety and security against the floods, as such a man's life is built on trusting and applying Jesus' teaching. Likewise, the author of Hebrews labors vigorously to convince his readers that true faith in Christ works itself out in obedience. Hebrews 2:1-4 urges readers to "pay much closer attention to what we have heard" and not "neglect" salvation. Hebrews 3:1 says we must "consider Jesus" and to "take care, brothers, lest there be in any of [us] an evil, unbelieving heart, leading [us] to fall away from the living God" (Heb 3:12). We are warned not to be "hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb 3:13). So what kind of person is the author referring to exactly? Well, he explains there is a precedent for people initially giving evidence of having received God's grace who later prove there is no genuine faith. He mentions those "who heard and yet rebelled" (Heb 3:16). These were the Israelites who saw the saving power of God to deliver Israel from the bondage of Egypt and lead them through the Red Sea, but these same people all died over the next 40 years in the wilderness as judgment because they refused to trust God and enter the Promised Land. We are told "those who were disobedient" (Heb 3:18) were "unable to enter because of unbelief" (Heb 3:19). The author equates disobedience with unbelief and uses them interchangeably. In other words, unbelief is confirmed by disobedience, and belief (faith) is confirmed through obedience. There are, however, numerous examples of those who had great confidence God would do something for them, and they found out the hard way they were wrong because they did not listen to all that God had said. One such example can be found in 1 Samuel 4. In this passage Israel went into battle with the Philistines and someone had the bright idea to bring the ark of the covenant with them into the battle so as to ensure victory. Why would they do that? They were trusting that since God's presence was connected in a meaningful way to the ark (which was true) that meant God could be summoned to fight for Israel whenever they liked (which was not true). We are told Israel believed that if they simply brought the ark into battle that meant God would save them (1 Sam 4:7). However, God's promises to provide for and protect His people were tied to Israel's faithfulness to their covenant with God (Deut 28), and since Israel had been breaking the covenant they had forfeited any right to reasonably expect God to act on their behalf. And what was the result of Israel presuming that God would do what they wanted just because they brought the ark, even though Israel was failing to keep the covenant? They were decisively defeated in battle, their priests were killed, and the ark of God was captured by the Philistines (1 Sam 4:10-11). Trusting God will act will only benefit us if we are trusting Him to do what He actually promised to do, and if we are obedient to all He has revealed to us. Other Considerations Living by faith is a matter of rightly understanding God's Word and responding with our obedience. But what about those who have taken God's promises seriously and have been faithful to His commands (as far as they know), but they have not seen any "results" yet? Again, Hebrews 10:36 says, "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised." It seems that there is an element of time that also factors into our seeing the fulfillment of God's promises. The audience reading Hebrews was feeling the cost of their obedience to Jesus, and there were questions as to whether the cost was necessary or worth it. When were they going to see the fullness of the kingdom of God and victory in Jesus? How much longer would they need to suffer? The author's admonition for his readers was to keep going in obedience to Christ, despite the very real personal cost, if they wanted to obtain what was promised. We notice again the close relationship between faith and obedience; the readers could not claim to still believe in Jesus and stop obeying Him at the same time. But the author is also honest about the prerequisite of endurance for seeing the promised blessings. There are some things God has promised that will only be obtained on the other side of long obedience. The question God's people often find themselves asking is how long? The call for and expectation of endurance is odious to many, especially in our day. We are accustomed to instant gratification. We live in a time of fast food, next-day shipping, and instant streaming. We want results, and we expect them now. I am reminded of a meme, playing on a popular commercial, that said, "I do not always exercise, but when I do I expect the results to be immediate and spectacular!" And yet if we import that kind of thinking into the Christian life we will either pervert our understanding of what Christian living is really about, or we will end up growing disillusioned about our promised salvation in Jesus. We need to have a realistic and biblical expectation for what God will do, and we need to have a proper understanding of how and when God might do it. And there is no getting around the fact God operates on His timetable, not ours (2 Peter 3:8-9); and it seems clear from Scripture God often chooses unconventional means of accomplishing His purposes so that we do not become confused about who should get the glory (1 Cor 1:27-31). Back to the Initial Question So this brings us back to the original question: how do we rightly use God's promises without falling into the ditch of presumption or unbelief? First, we should immerse ourselves in the Word of God with other believers to constantly improve our understanding of the Scriptures. You cannot trust promises you do not know, and you will misapply promises that are detached from the rest of Scripture. Clarity about what God has promised gives us boldness and courage to pray expectantly (2 Sam 7:27). Second, we must be convinced that God is infinitely good, sovereign, wise and compassionate towards us. He is a loving Father who gives His children good gifts (Matt 7:11) and satisfies the longing soul with good things (Ps 107:9). If we want to receive what is good, it must always come from God's hand (Ps 16:2). In view of God's perfect love for us displayed in Jesus going to the cross to save His enemies and make them His friends (Rom 5:8), we have every reason to trust God's plan for us. When we go to God with our desires, fears, questions, and petitions, it cannot be with doubt as the backdrop; it must be faith (Jam 1:6-8). Third, we must trust God's timing. All things are ours in Christ (1 Cor 3:21-24), but that does not mean that all things will be obtained by us in this life (Phil 3:12-16). There is an "already-but not yet" aspect to the Christian life. We have received the Holy Spirit as a downpayment of what will be enjoyed in full at the return of Jesus (Eph 1:14; 1 Jn 3:2). There are some graces God grants in this life to assure us of our future inheritance, but there are many (likely the majority) graces that will not be enjoyed until later. I can say that every prayer of a Christian for the blessings offered in Christ will be answered as "yes" (2 Cor 1:20)--some of those will be answered "yes" now, and others God sees fit to answer "yes" at the final resurrection. So that means we should pray for everything the Bible calls good and trust God will answer "yes" at the appropriate time. Faith requires us to trust that "later" does not mean God has failed to hear us or keep His promises, it means that God knows better than we do and has chosen to delay fulfillment for His own good, sovereign reasons. Fourth, let your desperation move you to share your needs with others for their prayers. God will bring His sovereign purposes to pass, but He has also chosen means for how He will do it. Scripture reveals God has ordained fervent prayers of His people to be the means He accomplishes some of His purposes (2 Chron 16:9). Stated differently, there are some things God will not do, but is willing to do, unless His people pray seriously. James 4:2-3 says, "You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." James teaches us that praying with right motives will result in God doing things that He will not otherwise do. And in the next chapter James instructs those who are sick or dealing with indwelling sin to humble themselves and seek other believers, particularly the elders of the church, to pray for deliverance from their afflictions (James 5:13-16). It seems God intends to deliver His people from physical and spiritual difficulties, but sometimes the way He intends to do it is through the prayers of other believers. The willingness to let others know about our struggles requires humility and trust, and it is often dependent on our desperation because we recognize our own inability to handle the situation alone. And finally, turn your holy dissatisfaction with the yet unfulfilled promises into fuel for personal fervent prayer. The most prominent type of psalm in the Book of Psalms is lament--a holy complaint. These psalms reflect the frustration and wrestling of believers to reconcile the disconnect between what God has promised and what is actually happening in their lives. Psalms 37 and 73 are great examples, where the psalmists must deal with the question of why the wicked seem to prosper despite God's warnings of judgment against sin. In essence, the writers of lament psalms say, "God, You promised ____, but ____ is happening instead. Please do something to fix it!" The prayers we see in Scripture show us that God's people do not let the sovereignty of God be used as an excuse to bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine. Trusting in God does not leave us robotic and stoic; rather biblical faith in God rouses us to passionate and expectant prayer! Admitting that our experience seems incongruent with what God has promised is not doubting God (yet), but it is the fork in the road that will make us choose whether we will hold firmly to what God has said or abandon it for something else. Faithful Christians come to that fork in the road and choose to believe that God is still trustworthy and His promises are still true; therefore we pray in faith for God to act in accordance with what He has promised, and we wait for Him in confidence until He moves. It is an amazing thing that God has invited His creatures to seek Him with our desires and petitions with the promise that He will hear us and respond! Praying biblically is not about a formula, but it is about a relationship with the living God. And just like any healthy relationship requires listening to what the other person actually said, we too must take the time to listen to what God actually said. Our effective praying depends on knowing the character and promises of God.
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AuthorI am follower of Jesus Christ by God's grace, married to Kelsey, father to four children, and pastor of Lighthouse Church (EPC). Archives
November 2022
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