Unlocking the Unlimited with Faith Dear Friend, It is persevering faith in the living Christ that allows us to unlock the unlimited. Yet it can be hard to exercise faith when day after day passes, and there seems to be little evidence of change. That is why Hebrews 10:35–36 tells us to hold on to our confidence that God will answer us when we pray. “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.” You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” We are told throughout Scripture to keep believing and keep praying. We are to continue exercising faith as we pray, just as Paul did when he pleaded with the Lord three times about his “thorn in the flesh.” 2 Corinthians 12:8–9 Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:7–8 to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking. Jesus also reminds us in Matthew 18:20 that nothing is impossible to those who have faith. When believers pray, thunder sounds in heaven in response. Revelation 8:4–5 illustrates what usually happens when heaven makes decisions that are acted out on earth. History belongs to the prayer warriors who believe, agree, persevere, and stand firmly on the promises of God. They are the people whose prayers produce spiritual thunder—voices, flashes of lightning, and earthquakes that crack the status quo wide open. These prayers become instruments through which God brings justice, love, and compassion in the midst of seemingly impossible obstacles. In Malachi 3:10, God challenges us, “Test me. Try me. Let me prove it to you.” Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:7, we accept this challenge and, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” At a young age, I accepted the challenge and started asking, seeking, and knocking. Once when I was in my early teens, I went turkey hunting with my father. I sat in a blind all morning alone waiting, waiting, and waiting but no turkey came out. Then I heard the truck coming up the road to get me. At that moment I blurted out in prayer, “Dear God send out one turkey gobbler.” No sooner had the prayer been said and out walked one turkey gobbler. I knew that turkey was a direct answer to my prayer. Years later, while at senior college I was going around a sharp bend on an icy road when suddenly my car skidded out of control. It was about to go off the road into a five foot drop off when I cried out, “Lord save me, and I will read your word daily.” At that moment it was like a dozen angels grabbed that car and straightened it, bringing it to a complete stop. 1
As the years passed and I began to read, meditate, and take God’s Word and apply it to the needs I faced daily, I started seeing miracles. Jesus poured out His Holy Spirit upon me and brought forth New Life Evangelistic Center. At New Life we would pray, and God would miraculously provide our food for the next meal along with the funds necessary to pay the bills. When we would get sick, we would remember that by His stripes we are healed. Yes, we knew that the shed blood of Jesus Christ cleansed us from all of our sins but as we faced sickness and did not have money for doctors or insurance, we had to believe that when Jesus was beaten His stripes also provided healing as it says in Isaiah 53:5. I remember the time when Chris, my son as a young child, got very sick in the middle of the night. I took him to the emergency room of the hospital. I sat there on that cold night in the waiting room while everyone seemed to cough around us. As I sat there, I began to realize that by taking him to a place surrounded by sick people and waiting for hours for help I might have been doing him more harm than good. Finally, we got up and went home and after praying saw him get better in the next two days. Either way, we knew we had to believe God for a miracle. This miracle would be either a miraculous provision for the doctor bill or a complete healing. Don’t get me wrong I believe doctors are a great gift from God. What I have learned over the years is that first I must pray and then seek the doctors’ help under God’s direction. The foundation point for my belief in answered prayers is the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the reality of this resurrection which changes everything. Because Christ is Risen the miracle of heaven is awaiting us after death. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and now we can rise from the paralysis of unbelief into a realm of being fully persuaded that God answers prayer. “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he (and she) who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (I John 5:4-5). Jesus took my sins and your sins upon Himself on the cross and ultimately conquered death through His physical resurrection. This miracle provides us with the power we need to overcome the world. As I get older, I continue to learn how God is able to answer prayers on a daily basis if we will have faith in Him. If you and I are going to accomplish that which God has called us to do, we also must be fully persuaded that God has the power to do what He has promised. We have to believe the words that Paul declared in Ephesians 3:20 when he stated, “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” 2
He “is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine”. If we are going to understand this power, we must know what it means to be in Christ Jesus. II Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” This power is a result of repenting of our sins and committing our lives to Jesus and living daily under His direction. When this happens, we are not just reformed, rehabilitated, or reeducated, but we are recreated (a new creation) living in union with Jesus Christ. “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6-7). As I continue to live in Christ, rooted and built up in Him I know I can ask my Heavenly Father for anything, and everything to complete the job He has given me to do. For that reason, when He presented the opportunity to build a full power television station in St. Louis, I said yes Lord. I must admit, I didn’t have a full understanding of what was involved in building a TV station, yet I believed in God and His ability to bring forth the miracle of Channel 24. Even after KNLC Channel 24 was miraculously built and went on the air, the New Life staff continued to face one need after another. We were learning it wasn’t enough to just believe in miracles, but we also had to have an overcoming faith where we were fully persuaded to the extent that we would not give up when problems occurred. As I John 5:4 says, “For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith”. It is this faith which allows us to be fully persuaded that God answers prayer. We must be constantly reminded that, by being in Christ, we are “a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (II Corinthians 5:17). This newness is a result of the miracle of salvation that Jesus has provided. As a saved people we are a victorious people for, “Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have the divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (II Corinthians 10:3-5). This obedience to Christ involves responding to the needs of our community. For example, during the 1980 heat crisis and the severe cold of the winter of 1982, the NLEC staff saw God provide the miracles of fans, air conditioners, wood furnaces, heaters, and blankets. As we have continued to pray throughout the years, we have witnessed the miracles God provided for the poor, elderly and homeless in response to prayer.
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It was faith which enabled us to believe in miracles. This faith was activated through the Word of God. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). In order for faith to do its perfect work we must move forth daily seeking God’s direction and maintaining an attitude of humility. “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us” (Romans 12:3-6). In the context of a community of faith, we are able to overcome the daily pressures by looking to Christ, the hope of glory. Our faith is not in our faith but in our Living Lord who reminds us in His Word to “Be devoted to one another in brotherly (and sisterly) love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited” (Romans 12:10-16). Victorious faith which believes God daily to answers prayer involves reading the Bible, walking humbly with God, and living a life of love in a community of people who are dedicated to serving Jesus Christ. It is in this community of fellow believers that I discover that when I am facing an impossible situation, I can get others to agree with me in prayer. As we pray, we release our faith knowing Jesus can perform the miraculous. In Mark 9, in verse 22, the father of the demon possessed son cries out to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” In response, we see Jesus saying, “Everything is possible for him who believes.” As one who believes in the power of prayer, I must be fully persuaded “…that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). I must always remember that true prayer comes from the heart where a victory has resulted from an interior battlefield in which Christ now reigns supreme. In such a life, inner liberty results when we are free to act in obedience to God’s Word and not the expectations of others. As this happens the Christ reigns supreme and God is free to answer our prayers.
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Praying and believing in miracles also involves accepting God’s will when He says no to a request and declares, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). We must then hear Him declaring in the midst of our doubts and uncertainties, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). When Victor Anderson came as a homeless man to NLEC many years ago, a psychiatrist had told him he was an “incurable alcoholic”. While he was at New Life, he gave his life to Jesus Christ and experienced the miracle of Salvation. Then, in the NLEC Community he grew in his faith into a great man of God. When he moved on through death into the eternal arms of Jesus, Vic left a legacy of faith and an example of what it means to serve Christ. It was the word of God that had sustained Vic throughout his battle with cancer and prayer which empowered him. In the battles I encounter daily, I must never forget to put on the full armor of God as I take up the sword of the Word and the weapon of Prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20). As Walter Wink writes, “When we pray, we are not sending a letter to a celestial White House where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaging in an act of co-creation, in which one little sector of the universe rises up and becomes translucent, incandescent – a vibratory center of power that radiates the power of the universe.” Daily with each difficulty I encounter, I must pray, drawing my strength from Christ, as I declare along with Paul, “I can do everything through Him (Jesus) who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). I can never forget that “this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he (or she) who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (I John 5:4-5). No matter what circumstances you and I may encounter we must pray and believe that “we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Scripture is filled with one promise after another, along with example after example of how God answers prayer. Let Him show you this now by being fully persuaded that, “… He is able to do exceedingly above what you can even ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). Yours in Christ,
Larry Rice
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