Christian Union National Fast: America Returning to God, August 1-14, 2024
by michael racine, writer and ministry fellow for cu lux at yale
If you want to see a miracle, what should you do? It’s a question that children in Sunday school could readily answer: Ask God, and have faith. This message runs all throughout the gospels, in the numerous healing accounts in which Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well,” “Be it done to you according to your faith,” or something similar, and in His explicit and repeated teaching on the subject to His disciples. “Ask, and you shall receive” (Matt 7:7; Luke 11:9). “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).
All too often, though, we find ourselves crying out like the afflicted boy’s father, “Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief!” (see Mark 9:24). How can we remove the nagging doubt that chokes our mustard seed of faith and keeps it from bearing fruit? First, it helps to understand what exactly “faith” is, as defined by the Scriptures. Faith is not, as many would suggest today, willful belief without evidence. It is, quite simply, that which underlies our expectations and convinces us of things we haven’t seen (Heb 11:1). All of us believe a million different things beyond what we’ve personally seen, and quite rationally. Why? Because we’ve been told, and we deemed the source reliable. “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of the Anointed” (Romans 10:17).
If God hasn’t said He will do something—or if you don’t know what He has said—you cannot have faith. So the Fall of man began with the question, “Did God really say…?” (Gen 3:1).
Without God’s word, you can have a wish, a desire, and you can express that desire in prayer as a request; but you can have no faith—you have no grounds for expecting God to do what He hasn’t said He would do.
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for it is necessary that the one coming to God believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of those who seek Him (Heb 11:6).
To please God, we must have faith; and to have faith, we must know what God has said He would do. It is imperative, then, that we understand the covenant God has made with us. 
In fact, the word “rewarder” in Hebrews 11:6 is an explicitly covenantal term—it literally denotes “one who pays wages,” as in the parable Jesus tells about a man who goes and hires laborers to work in his vineyard (Matt 20:1–16). He hires a first group early in the morning, having agreed to pay them each a denarius for the day’s work. Then he goes again at midmorning, noon, and midafternoon, each time recruiting more workers to join those who had started earlier. What can each laborer expect at the end of the day?
Those who started first can each expect a denarius, because that is what the master promised, and they did what was required of them. So they receive one denarius each. The twist in the parable is that those who started work much later also receive a denarius from the master. The master in the parable didn’t have to give the latecomers a full day’s wage, but he chose to be generous; at the same time, he didn’t owe the firstcomers anything more than the denarius they had agreed upon. Thus the parable reminds us that God gives according to His will and His promises, not according to what we deserve. And we, rather than thinking we have somehow earned more of God’s favor than others, ought to consider ourselves blessed as the “last” whom God makes “first” in giving us far better than our meager efforts have warranted.
We can be sure that God will not give us less than He has promised when we meet His terms. “He is the rewarder of those who seek him,” and with the blood of Jesus, He has sealed a covenant full of precious and great promises. So, do you want to walk in the power of faith, free from unbelief? Meditate on God’s promises, and do as He bids you to do. When you fail, ask for (and receive) His grace, then put your eyes back on the prize and carry on. Then watch Him do wonderful things, as He delights to do.
Father, thank you that you faithfully reward our seeking. First and foremost, thank you for giving us Yourself, being ever present through your Holy Spirit. And thank you for answered prayers of every kind, as we abide in You and Your words abide in us. Preserve us from every distraction and all double-mindedness as we desire to walk in Your ways and bring renown to Jesus’ name. Amen.
