DEVOTION - WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2012

DEVOTION – WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2012

“Faith-based’

BY

PASTOR BOB COY

I will lift up my eyes to the hills; from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. Psalms 121:1-2 (NKJV)

Have you ever noticed how faith-based prayer is? Think about it, you're in a room all by yourself, your head is bowed, maybe your knees are bent, and you're facedown on the floor. You're lips are moving as you're expressing and articulating what's on your heart. By all outward appearances this seems futile, even foolish.

And that would be true—if you took faith out of the equation. But faith, the firm conviction that there are spiritual realities that transcend the world we can see, changes everything. Faith grabs hold of prayer and wields it like a mighty, life-changing weapon. Isn't it interesting that when it comes to one of the most important practices in the Christian life, so much of it depends on faith?

There's a reason for this. There's a reason God has set prayer up to be such a faith-based activity. It's so we can become more and more familiar with the lifestyle of faith. Each time we decide to pray, we declare that we believe in something that's not of this world. We proclaim that our trust is invested in things that are beyond the limitations of earth.

Perhaps that's a new concept for some of us. Maybe we've even fallen into the trap of devaluing prayer because it is so dependent on faith. It's easy for us to slip into that way of thinking because let's face it, it's easier to present your requests to someone standing right in front of you instead of lifting your eyes up to the hills and trusting that there's Someone who hears and is willing to respond.

But God is wise enough to know that when we pray to Him, when we press through the urge to focus on what we can see, we grow and mature as people of faith.