James 5: 13-15
Life gives us constant trials and consistently tests our faith. But God has proven himself faithful above all. Faith for so long has been defined as mere “believing in what we cannot see,” but this is actually not the case. Faith goes so much deeper than just belief. It is widely accepted in the Christian community that every word that Jesus spoke is true (as it should be). But if that is so; then when he says “ask anything in my name and it will be given to you through faith” or “with a mustard seed of faith cast these mountains into the sea,” it should be done. So why isn’t it always done that way? Because belief can be conjured up. I can convince myself of believing in something, but I cannot convince myself to have more faith. Faith is a gift from God, and it should be treated as such. Belief is not faith, but rather, it opens the door and invites faith to step in. Faith is mentioned several times as a spirit, and with deeper research into the original Greek, we actually come to find that it is the same word used for the “Spirit of Faith” is the same for the “Holy Spirit”.
Time and time again Christians will anoint the sick with oil to pray and believe for a healing or miracle in someone’s body (James 5), and if they don’t end up seeing the miracle straight away, they will try to pray harder, as if the words they say had any effect on the outcome. When we beg God for a miracle, we are subconsciously thinking ourselves more gracious than He is. They don’t realize that when the spirit of faith is present, the free gift of God is given, miracles just happen. We don’t have to beg or plea. We just invite the Spirit of God to move and He will. Jesus is the perfecter of our faith, and in Mark 8:24-25 we see that Jesus had to pray for a man twice to be healed of blindness. If Jesus had to pray twice, then I would say we have perfect license to pray until the job is done. We cannot convince God to do what we want Him to do, all we have to do is invite the spirit of faith and continue to press into his word. It takes the pressure off of us completely and places it all upon the grace freely given to us.
Photography: @alexandra_michon