Those of us who consider ourselves “faith people” might assume that the Word could never make us hard. After all, we love the Word! We live by faith in the Word! We can’t get enough of it. Even so, we need to remember what Jesus told the Pharisees: “You search and investigate and pore over the Scriptures diligently, but you don’t come to Me so that you might have life.” (See John 5:39-40, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition.)
Shocking as it may sound, as believers we’ve sometimes made that mistake. Determined to master the prayer of faith, for instance, we’ve read every scripture about it we can find. We’ve studied those scriptures. We’ve heard sermons galore on them. Many of us can even quote by memory the instructions Jesus laid down for us in Mark 11:22-24:
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.
It’s good that we know those verses. They’re important. They reveal a spiritual law; but please note that, unlike religious laws, spiritual law isn’t legalistic. It’s not just something we’re supposed to do because the Lord said, “OK, these are going to be the rules.” In other words, we may do what Jesus said just because He said it. But He didn’t say it just because He wanted to. No, spiritual laws reveal how the spirit realm operates.
They’re like the laws of physics in the natural. We call them laws because they work, all the time, every time. Take the law of gravity, for example. It’s considered a law of physics because it’s an unchanging truth: What goes up must come down. It took mankind about 1500 years to figure that out, but now we know that’s a law that cannot be changed.
It can be overridden with another law of physics—the law of lift. That’s how airplanes fly. But gravity doesn’t cease to work when we put the law of lift into operation. If it did, the law of lift wouldn’t work. (We know that now because in outer space where there is no gravity, there is no law of lift either, just the law of “float.”)
Spiritual laws reveal how the spirit realm operates. We call them laws because they work, all the time, every time.
In Mark 11:22-24, Jesus reveals to us how the spiritual law of faith works. He explains it in a way that allows us to analyze it and figure out, step by step, how to put it into motion: First, we must have the faith of God in our heart about something. Second, we release that faith by speaking it. Third, we refuse to doubt in our hearts. Fourth, we believe what we say will come to pass.
Studying and learning each step Jesus outlined there can and should be highly productive. And that’s usually how we begin the process of putting faith to work in our prayer lives. Like good pilots go to school to learn the secrets of the law of lift, we read our Bible and go to church to learn the secrets of the law of faith. We take notes and write things down. Then, like good students, we go out and begin to practice what we’ve learned.
We work on it. We do all the things the Scriptures and our pastor tell us we need to do, and that’s good. Sometimes we see it work and sometimes it seems like it doesn’t. But we persist because we’re confident that if we stick with the Word, we’ll keep growing in our understanding and make progress.
Eventually though, we may find we’re stuck. We may get to a place where we think, I know the law of faith works. I know what God’s Word says about my situation, I believe it in my heart and I’m saying it, but it’s not coming to pass. What’s missing? Why does it seem like I’m operating according to spiritual law and following the rules and yet not getting the right results?
The answer to those questions can be found in John 14:11-13. There, Jesus says:
Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me…. I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. And I will do [I Myself will grant] whatever you ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM], so that the Father may be glorified and extolled in (through) the Son (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).
In this passage, Jesus isn’t just talking about things. He’s not just talking about faith. He’s
Jesus not only called God His Father; He talked about Him with a passion and emotion that was born out of the loving relationship He had with Him.
not only talking about believing or speaking, or about taking certain actions. No, there are relationships involved in this.
Putting Himself personally in the mix, Jesus tells you to believe in Him. Then, He brings in the Father. He speaks of their relationship and says, “I’m going to Him.” Then He says directly to you that He will do whatever you ask, that the Father may be glorified and extolled through the Son.
There are relational connections being made here! They are very personal, and their purpose is being revealed. What is that purpose? It’s not just to get an end result. It’s not just to have what you’re believing and praying for come to pass. The purpose, Jesus said, is so the Father can be glorified.
Notice God isn’t portrayed as an impersonal force here. He’s not just the behind-the-scenes Power that pulls the strings, pushes the buttons and makes sure the law of faith works. He is not just up there with lightning bolts coming out of His fingertips, saying, “Oh, look! They got the faith formula right. Zap!”
No, Jesus is talking in these verses about a Father! Rather than calling Him “God,” or “The Almighty One on the Throne”—although Jesus is very aware that God is all those things—in this conversation, Jesus calls Him, “the Father.” You don’t often see God described like that in the Old Testament. People back then didn’t really think of Him as a Father. They were more familiar with the legal side of Him.
But Jesus took the legal side of spiritual law and infused it with the vital, making it living and real. He not only called God His Father; He talked about Him with a passion and emotion that was born out of the loving relationship He had with Him.
When I imagine the love that must have welled up in Jesus when He spoke about His heavenly Father, I’m reminded of how I have felt at times thinking about my earthly father, my dad. On occasions I’ve been so caught up with love for him, I’ve just had to call and tell him how much he means to me. Yet as close as I am to my dad, my relationship with him pales in comparison to the love relationship Jesus had, and still has, with His Father. At times, He, too, must have become so caught up with love for His Father that He just had to stop and talk to Him. That must have been one of the reasons He so often would go off by Himself and pray.
Prayer Is About People
Asking for material things is a scriptural thing to do, but that’s not primarily what prayer is about. Prayer is about people. Jesus is a Person—an awesome Person. And our heavenly Father is a very real divine Personality. Their hearts beat as one with a longing for people to be close to them.
That’s always been God’s heart. Even in the Old Testament, when He brought the Israelites out of Egypt, His great desire was for them to draw near to Him. When they came to Mount Sinai, He told Moses His plan was to speak to them directly so they could personally hear His voice. “I’m going to come down on the mountain to meet with them,” He said. “I want them to come as close to Me as they can, so you tell them to sanctify themselves. Tell them to do everything they can to prepare themselves to be in My presence.” (See Exodus 19.)
Because the blood of Jesus hadn’t yet been shed, true spiritual sanctification wasn’t yet available. The way had not yet been made for people to be sin free and clean on the inside. So, since they couldn’t wash on the inside, God instructed Moses to have them wash on the outside.
He didn’t mean for those instructions to be turned into religious laws without purpose to affect the heart. People have done that, but it wasn’t God’s intent. He was saying, “Moses, you tell My people I’m going to come down and that I want to see them. You tell them I’ll talk to them. Tell them to wash their clothes, purge their thinking, and see to it that they don’t sin. Tell them to do everything they possibly can to get themselves right, so they can come as close to Me as I dare allow. Don’t let them come too close, though. Put ropes around the base of the mountain to keep them at a safe distance because I don’t want to hurt them. My glory destroys sin.”
Moses relayed God’s instruction to the people, and for three days they got ready. Then, at the appointed time, God came down on the mountain in a thick, lightning-filled cloud. For the sake of the people, the Bible says, God clothed Himself in darkness. Even though the power of His presence shook the whole mountain, He tried to wrap up, to conceal and cloak Himself, so they could come as close to Him as possible.
What did the people do? They did not come close.
Instead, they said to Moses, “You go talk to God for us and pass along to us what He says.” So, that’s what Moses did. He wasn’t at all reluctant to meet with God on Mount Sinai. He wanted to do it. Rather than being put off by the power of God’s presence, Moses pressed into it. Joshua followed him part of the way up the mountain and then stopped because he couldn’t handle the manifestation of God’s glory. But Moses went all the way to the top.
God is alive in eternity. He is alive in the past, in the present and in the future. He is not boxed in by time.
It wasn’t the last time he did so, either. Over the years, Moses continued to press into God’s presence. As he did, his hunger to experience more of God kept increasing to the point where, in Exodus 33:18, he cried out to the Lord, “I beseech You, show me Your glory!” (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition). He wasn’t saying, “I want to see mist, more clouds and sparkles.” Or “I want to see a miracle or some spectacular sign and wonder.” He’d already seen plenty of those things.
In Egypt, Moses had seen with his natural eyes more of God’s power on display than any of us have ever seen on this earth. He saw God’s wrath poured out on His enemies and His mercy manifested miraculously on behalf of Israel. In the wilderness, he saw water come out of a rock and manna come from heaven. His request wasn’t for God to show him more of what He could do; He wanted to see God Himself. He wanted to know Him. He wanted to be engulfed in His presence.
As an unborn-again man, however, such close contact with God would have killed Moses. So, God had to hold him back. He did reveal more of Himself than ever before, but He told Moses that to do so He would have to hide him in a rock to protect him.
I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim My name, THE LORD, before you; for I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy and loving-kindness on whom I will show mercy and loving-kindness. But, He said, You can not see My face, for no man shall see Me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place beside Me, and you shall stand upon the rock, and while My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away My hand and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen (verses 19-23, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).
The King James Version says God showed Moses His “back parts.” What does that mean? It certainly doesn’t mean He showed Moses His back end! No, He showed Moses what was behind Him, in the past. Moses’ record of what he saw became the biblical record of Creation. How else do you think Moses knew about Adam and Eve? He saw and heard God create them!
God is alive in eternity (Isaiah 57:15). He is alive in the past, in the present and in the future. He is not boxed in by time, so He opened Moses’ eyes to see what He had already done. In the process, He gave Moses a picture of what He would one day do through Jesus.
Jewish scholars teach that God revealed Himself to Moses only as much as Moses had capacity to see, which was His goodness. What Moses really wanted, though, was more of God Himself. He wasn’t satisfied to relate to Him only as a divine Person on a throne. Even simply knowing the Law, His Word, wasn’t enough. Moses wanted to know Him as a living Being, to experience as fully as possible the reality of His presence and have a vital, intimate, personal relationship with the God who created and upholds the universe.
I want that too, don’t you? And even more important, it’s what God wants. It’s why He sent Jesus. Not just so we can learn the mechanics of faith and get answers to our prayers, but so we can apply those “mechanics of faith” and have what Moses so passionately desired—to be in the Father and have the Father in us.
~ This article is an excerpt from the book by Terri Copeland Pearsons, titled An Encounter With Him. For more information, or to order your copy today, go to https://encounter.kcm.org/.
