The Faith of Jesus

Peter and John were headed to an afternoon prayer meeting. A routine,
ordinary, scheduled event on the church calendar, called “the hour of
prayer.” Today, another person would intersect their daily routine, a
man lame from birth, laid alongside their path to beg for alms.
Providentially, he was about to become the victim of a drive-by
blessing. That was the moment when God’s aggressive grace intervened.

Suddenly, faith was interjected, words were spoken, action was taken,
and an ordinary day became an extraordinary event as a deeply-felt
human need was immediately met by God’s mercy toward mankind and His
anger against the devil’s deeds. When faith responded to the Spirit’s
discernment, God’s power went to ground. Today, this same Holy Spirit
is here in us and among us. By the Holy Spirit’s gifts (or charismata)
we get to do the same stuff Jesus did when we practice prayer and
exercise faith. How does it happen? Only one way: by the faith that
comes from Jesus (Acts 3:16).

John, the contemplative, was accompanied by his opposite in nature,
Peter, the impulsive. They were the “odd couple” of apostolic partners.
Before Pentecost, they didn’t even seem to like each other, perhaps
were even jealous of each other. As different as night and day, a lover
and a fighter, one doomed to die in a Roman arena, the other to cross
heaven’s threshold from a ripe old age. Peter the preacher at
Pentecost, and John the seer of Revelation. What did they have in
common? They had both been mentored by Jesus. They had both been
empowered by Holy Spirit baptism. And they had begun praying together
in a grace-matrix that was firing up the furnace of an apostolic
factory.

But today they were merely walking side by side to a prayer meeting,
another ordinary day in the life of two plain disciples, another day of
routine faithfulness. But unknown to them, they had crossed the
threshold into kingdom-of-God possibilities. The presence of God had
reached critical mass in their lives. The chain-reaction of the Holy
Spirit’s anointing had built up to a red-hot level of glowing glory and
was about to irradiate a crippled man in a burst of manifest mercy.
This is what happens when prayers crescendo.

Years ago when I helped develop gifts of the Spirit in a local church,
first prophetic gifts and later healing gifts, the Lord showed me that
it was right for us to meet and pray and stir one another up. He said,
“I will forever conceal in isolation what I will freely reveal in
fellowship.” We need to light each other’s fire and stir up each
other’s gifts. The old Pentecostal saints called it “tarrying.” Like
hot coals pushed into a burning heap, we intensify one another’s flame
when we stick tight to seek God together. Then, out of that fire of
burning holy oil, the activated anointing, we can turn from worship to
warfare, and together we can do damage to the devil’s work and deliver
people in Jesus’ name.

We multiply our power when we team up for Jesus. Peter and John, Paul
and Silas, the divine pattern is two by two: a couple with God in the
Garden, animals into the Ark with Noah, pairs out the door to heal the
sick (Luke 10:1). How much good can happen when two believers walk in
the will of God together? What is the possibility when two people start
a divinely-directed spiritual offensive, and then continue praying
together over time, keeping up their assault on hell’s gates, not
stopping until something happens?

There is simply no limit to what God will do when two or three pray
with hearts and voices united in anointed faith (Matthew 18:18-20). I
especially hear the Spirit calling men to this alert today. Listen up:
Go get a prayer-partner! Act valiantly in battle!

Peter spotted the lame man. Something caught his attention. Something
in his spirit stirred. He didn’t look with the eyes of pity, but looked
at the potential for a miracle. He saw a divine opening, a flash of
what could be. It required an instant response or it would easily slip
by like a closing sliding door. Obey your heart or your head? Do what
the Spirit says or stick with common sense? In only a moment, a
pregnant pause while eternity peers down, a glimpse of the powers of
the age to come, a tiny crack in the curtain of time; a mere split
second in which heaven draws near, or… maybe not?

He saw the Holy Spirit brooding over the man. He saw the man no longer
resigned to disease but rising up in hope for wholeness. Out of his
seeing by the Spirit what could be, Peter opened his mouth and spoke
words by faith that stirred a response of faith. Peter said what he
heard so that he could see what he’d said. God’s Spirit agreed with the
words of faith and the man became well. Can you picture it? Does it
thrill you? Can you put yourself in his place? Can you see his wife
when he walked home that day?

The lame man only expected money, but Peter instead gave him something
money can’t buy: his health. Peter said, “Such as I have give I thee.”
And the command of faith came, “In the name of Jesus, walk!” Words
spoken with faith’s authority released the power to receive from God.
Faith acted upon resulted in an affectation of faith, a work of faith.
Words have power when the Holy Spirit is in them. Our words uncover
what we carry inside. Our words are containers that can push grace from
God into another’s needy life.

Whereas in one moment the lame man had only faith to beg for money, in
the next moment, faith for healing was given him by a man sent from
God. One man who had seen a resurrection, who had spent time praying,
gave away a gift of grace to another man who had never taken a normal
step in his life and had seen only lameness and limitations.

When the lame man was dramatically healed in a public way, it stirred
up the city to react. The stage was set for a powerful Christ-honoring
sermon to be proclaimed outside the sanctuary in the dirty streets.
Miracles are still God’s advertisement for the gospel. We often assume
signs and wonders only occur for missionaries in poverty-stricken
countries, but that’s wrong. Apostles may work wonders, but so do
ordinary saints who know Jesus. If we pray, if we get full of God, if
we have boldness to speak, miracles also happen here, next door, today.
We are carriers of God’s infectious kingdom, a kingdom of power and
mercy, and we know that with God speaking, nothing is impossible!

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© 2005 “The Faith of Jesus” by Ronald Wood. Write to us:
ron@touchedbygrace.org.
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