{"id":3465,"date":"2017-02-01T12:49:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T17:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=3465"},"modified":"2017-02-01T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T20:24:50","slug":"prayer-believing-believer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html","title":{"rendered":"A Prayer to be a Believing Believer"},"content":{"rendered":"

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is going to hell in a hand basket.\u201d
\n\u201cI just can\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re terminal.\u201d
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no use.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s too late.\u201d
\n\u201cI give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are all popular phrases we hear day in and day out, even in our churches. Unbelief has become the popular mode of the day. Faith preachers are scorned, and \u201cbelievers\u201d are sometimes the most negative, faithless folks you will meet on any given day. People mistake faith for pride and unbelief for humility.<\/p>\n

For Christmas our son gave us the book God is Good<\/span> by Bill Johnson. In the second chapter he talks in detail about faith, what it is, and why it\u2019s important. He also discusses the dangers of unbelief. Essentially he warns us to guard against any theology that doesn\u2019t require faith.<\/p>\n

See if you can follow these double negatives: It doesn\u2019t take faith to believe that my health challenges will worsen. It doesn\u2019t require faith to believe that our financial needs will not be met. It doesn\u2019t require faith to believe that my loved one who is an addict will never recover. And I don’t need faith to see to it that the mountain of adversity in my life stays put!<\/p>\n

In short, unbelief is the easiest thing in the world. Just believe in the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy rules simply by allowing the natural process of deterioration to do its good and perfect work \u2013 the work of wrecking the world, allowing everything to decline just as it is prone to do.<\/p>\n

God, on the other hand, had the notion that His people can fight and win over entropy using His name and authority. He put human beings on the planet to tend it like a garden and to make it a reflection of Heaven itself, bringing order, beauty, and God\u2019s great love to every corner.<\/p>\n

How about adding more faith to your faith? How about becoming a believing believer? Just hype, you say? Positive-thinking hogwash? I\u2019m not so sure\u2026 Without faith I cannot please God, and that\u2019s the one thing I want to do more than anything \u2013 give my Heavenly Father pleasure. Want faith? Pray this plain and simple prayer with us\u2026<\/p>\n

Father,<\/em><\/p>\n

You are Good. And when you made people in your image you said we were, \u201cVery Good.\u201d Lord, I want to have the faith of Jesus Himself. He said that nothing is impossible to those who believe. I want to be in the faith\u00a0category, seeing opportunities for miracles in every challenge, seeing your great ability superimposed over\u00a0every hopeless situation. Father, your Word says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Today I will listen to your Word. I open up my ears and my eyes to your Truth. Thank you for modern technology that allows me to listen to your Word all day long and to immerse myself in faith-filled teaching and preaching. Lead me and guide me as I seek to strengthen my faith to the place where I am unmoved, unimpressed, and underwhelmed by anything and everything but You!<\/em><\/p>\n

Amen!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11:6) \u201cThe world is going to hell in a hand basket.\u201d \u201cI just can\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re terminal.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s no use.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s too…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,7,4,25,1],"tags":[787,2008,2010,1138,2009,1384],"class_list":["post-3465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bible-prayer","category-daily-prayer","category-god","category-jesus","category-uncategorized","tag-belief","tag-believers-who-believe","tag-faith-comes-by-hearing","tag-faith-in-god","tag-god-and-faith","tag-mature-believers"],"yoast_head":"\nA Prayer to be a Believing Believer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Prayer to be a Believing Believer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11:6) \u201cThe world is going to hell in a hand basket.\u201d \u201cI just can\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re terminal.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s no use.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s too…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-01T17:49:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-01T20:24:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark and Jill Herringshaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Prayer to be a Believing Believer","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Prayer to be a Believing Believer","og_description":"And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11:6) \u201cThe world is going to hell in a hand basket.\u201d \u201cI just can\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re terminal.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s no use.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s too…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html","og_site_name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","article_published_time":"2017-02-01T17:49:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-02-01T20:24:50+00:00","author":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html","name":"A Prayer to be a Believing Believer","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-02-01T17:49:08+00:00","dateModified":"2017-02-01T20:24:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/29563cda917dd596f93dba2ff3a7fedf"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2017\/02\/prayer-believing-believer.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Prayer to be a Believing Believer"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/","name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/29563cda917dd596f93dba2ff3a7fedf","name":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/94f\/94fb184ea80985d82e603e3d8dd0056bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/94f\/94fb184ea80985d82e603e3d8dd0056bx96.jpg","caption":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw"},"description":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw and their four children have been ministering in their local church since 1990. Jill is an accomplished worship leader and recording artist with several CDs in Target stores\u2019 \u201cLifescapes\u201d collection. Mark is the former pastor of the 7,000 member North Heights Lutheran Church. He holds a Ph.D. in leadership from Regent University, is the author of three books and a recognized conference speaker.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/author\/mherringshaw1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3465"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3469,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3465\/revisions\/3469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}