And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:22-24 KJV
God wants to answer your prayers. And it pleases Him when you bring your petitions before Him, especially when your petitions are accompanied by a truck-load of faith. For you are made in His image.
God is kind and merciful and loving and forgiving and generous and patient and gentle and holy and righteous and just. And He desires for you to develop His attributes that you might behave in a way that exemplifies His love for all mankind and glorifies Him as your Creator. As you draw close to God with a humble and thankful heart, believing that He’ll hear and will answer your prayer, you will be able to move mountains.
Jesus said, “Have faith in God.” (Mark 11:22) As He traveled from town to town healing people, He often told others: “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” (Matt. 9:22) Their faith always played a big role in being healed.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
What exactly does that mean? The dictionary definition of the word substance is “reality.” In other words, faith is the reality of things that we hope for, and the proof of things that we don’t see. So basically, if we have hope in the reality of something taking place, despite the fact that we see no evidence that anything is happening, we are exercising faith. And faith pleases God.
In Matthew chapter 9, Jesus encounters two blind men that want to see. Verses 28-29 say, “…and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.”
They only received sight because they believed. They believed that Jesus could. They believed that He would. And verse 30 says, “And their eyes were opened..”
In Mark 9:23-24, Jesus is talking to a distraught father, “…If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
We need to have faith in God. We need to believe. It’s a condition of answered prayer. How can you develop that kind of faith? By getting to know God through His Word. (Romans 10:17)