FAITH part 2 (Continued from yesterday).

FAITH part 2 (Continued from yesterday)……………………………….

God could have answered Daniel’s prayer immediately if He wanted to, but for some reason, He allowed the struggle in the heavenly realms to continue for days before the angel was able to reach Daniel. Romans 8:28 says that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. God is certainly powerful enough to answer your prayer immediately if He wants to, but usually He takes some time before He answers it. God is more concerned about us growing spiritually strong than getting everything we want right away. Just as our parents did not give us everything we wanted because they knew it was for our best, God also sometimes does not give us what we want when we ask for it. Every parent has probably had a child who wanted to eat ice cream for supper; however, the parent knew it would not be good for the child and did not permit it.

John 15:7 promises, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” The more God’s Word remains or lives in us, the more our desires will become closely aligned to God’s desires. If we really want God’s Word to abide in us we need to memorize it. Scripture has amazing power to realign your thinking when you memorize it and meditate on it. From the book The Amazing Power of Prayer

John tells us at the beginning of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” When we memorize the Word, we are making space in our mind for God in a very powerful way. To really increase your spiritual power, memorize, and meditate on God’s Word.
As we make space for God and His Word in our minds, our emotions come into play. Emotions are important to increasing your faith. You have to feel thankful and really enjoy the situation or person for which you prayed. Believe in the answer so much that you start to enjoy it as if you already have received it.
Your emotions are a good indicator of your level of faith. If you feel angry at God because He has not answered your prayer soon enough, that is an indicator that your faith is weak. If you feel any negative emotions fear, worry, guilt, depression, or anger, remember that these are indicators of weak faith. Get rid of them and be happy. Just as the negative emotions bring you away from God, the good emotions, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control, bring you close to God and strengthen your faith.
Jesus said, “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” John 10:10 (Amplified)

5. Hold on to your faith and be Happy while you wait for the answer to come to you.
Luke 18:1 “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
In this parable Jesus said that we may have to keep asking for a period of time. This is usually the most difficult part of prayer. It is easy to ask, and it’s sometimes easy to have faith when we ask. But to wait and wait for God to answer the prayer often makes our faith weak. The more faith we have, the more we can relax and enjoy waiting for the answer. We ,know that we have a great reward (the answer to our prayer) waiting for us. Just think how you would feel if you inherited a million dollars, but the court said you could not touch the money until it was probate was completed. You would be sure you would get it, but it might be a bit frustrating at times waiting. However, you would probably spend a lot of time thinking about how you would spend the money after you got it. The certainty of receiving a million dollars would bring you joy and change your attitude. You would begin planning how to spend the money. It might seem that you’d already received the money; it just wasn’t in your hands yet. That is the same way with prayer. Mark 11:24 says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have… From the book The Amazing Power of Prayer