The Power In Your Prayer Of Faith
“And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.” Luke 5:19 NKJV
We often wonder if our prayers for others really have any impact on their lives. After all, they have free will and no matter how hard we pray the decision is still theirs. Our prayers can’t make them receive. This thought sometimes causes us to pray less or with less faith when we pray for others. We learn a wonderful lesson about the power of our prayers for others when we read the story of the paralytic whose friends would not relent from getting him before Jesus. Eventually, they cut a hole in the roof so that they might lower him to Jesus because they could not get through the crowd.
Some say this man was saved through the faith of his friends. That is a mistake because we have to operate in faith to receive, but his friends played a huge role in his faith. It shows us the point that our prayers and faith do make an impact. First, we have to understand that the paralytic had to believe on his own to receive. Jesus saw the faith of his friends and was moved so much by their faith that He told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven. But realize the man was not healed at that moment. He was not healed until he exerted his own faith. This came when Jesus told the paralytic to rise up and go to his house. It took faith for the paralyzed man to believe for what he could never do before. So it was truly his faith that received the healing, not the faith of his friends.
However, his friends played a vital role in his receiving this miracle of Jesus. The friends were unrelenting in their faith. They believed that if they could get their friend to Jesus that their friend would be healed. This faith had to stir the paralyzed man, just as Peter and John’s faith stirred the faith of the paralyzed man in Acts chapter 3.
Their faith did matter, but even more importantly their faith positioned their friend to receive his healing. Their unrelenting faith positioned him to operate in his own faith and receive. He was too weak and could not get himself into a position to receive, but his friends’ faith did get him in position.
When you pray in faith for others, it is the power of Christ in you. Your prayer of faith positions the person you are praying for to receive from Jesus. They would likely not have the strength themselves to be in a position to receive the supernatural from Jesus, but your prayer of faith positioned them. They must still operate in their faith and believe and receive, but your prayer of faith puts them in position when they would not be able to position themselves by themselves. Pray for others in faith and know that there is power in your prayers of faith.
J Todd Hostetler