PRAYER IN FAITH NOT FAITH IN PRAYER.
There is a vast difference between prayer in faith and faith in prayer—a difference as vast in their character as in their commonness. Faith in prayer is very common; almost everybody has more or less of it. Prayer in faith is anything but common; so uncommon, in fact, that our Lord questions if he shall find any of it on the earth when he comes back to this world again. Prayer in faith is a commanded duty; faith in prayer is neither commanded nor justifiable. Prayer in faith is always reverent and spiritual; faith in prayer is often superstitious and presuming, although again it is the unconscious reliance of reverent and spiritually minded—but sadly mistaken—Christian disciples. What has been the nature of your praying—that of prayer in faith, or of faith in prayer? Praying in faith is making known our requests unto God, in full confidence that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us; and that according to our faith an answer to our prayers will be granted us. Having faith in prayer is believing that because certain prayers are offered, certain results will follow; that the praying will secure the thing prayed for. Prayer in faith comes of an abiding faith in the person prayed to; the confidence is in him; it is based on a knowledge of what he is, and on a full conviction that he is every way worthy to be trusted. Faith in prayer is a blind or a presuming reliance on an agency of good—an unauthorized dependence on mere human means. Praying in faith is the act of a simple-hearted child of God. Faith in prayer may be but one remove from the heathen's reliance on his charms and incantations.—S. S. Times.