Though we are charged to seek the Lord and deliberately pursue His presence, we can find ourselves in a rut if we lack the faith to find our desire met. We can pray and pray, sing and sing but have zero results unless its done in faith, because, faith finds God. If we seek and do not find, then our delight can only come from the discipline to a religious activity, and not in the person. Finding pleasure in the external form of prayer rather than the Holy Spirit, is fruitless. God has fashioned the christian life to be filled with the fullness of His intoxicating presence, and that we are to move from glory to glory without exception. There is no other way to live, but to live in the embrace of His love!

The eternal now. Many people seek God and live with the “then” perspective. They place the reward of his presence in the future after they have prayed x and such amount of time. But this mindset robs Christ of your now and He becomes the God of eventually, the God of your someday. When you have the perspective you must pray many grueling hours to enter His presence you have actually given Him instructions to NOT invade the present. You are robbing yourself of what He could do in 5 seconds of pressing in. Shifting your expectations will shift your results. You should place you mind in the mode of right NOW i’m before the throne of grace, right NOW i’m in the Holy of Holies, right NOW at any moment I can experience the greatest encounter of my life. With a bold confidence of expecting God to show up when you pray, you create an ambush of faith, and the Lord is drawn like a moth to a flame. Now this is not to say do not diligently seek Him, but every moment of diligently seeking should be with the hard-headed faith that says: I have access, I am qualified, I am included, I am approved, I am invited, I am coming close, I am a child of God who has unrestricted access to their Father! 5 Minutes of faith filled seeking can yield more result than 3 hours of strenuous prayer and worship.

What I’m trying to relay is coming to the Father with a revelation of our identity. We should not come with a beggar mindset, acting as though we are outsiders that need to convince a reluctant and distant God to show up. Our Father is madly in love with us, and has adopted us into His family. We should approach Him with that mentality. Yes He is almighty God, but Jesus told us to pray “Our Father,” not “Our Creator,” or “Our Sovereign Lord,” but, “Father.”

Truly, faith is the demand that moves the Heart of God. You can see this principle of receiving by faith powerfully illustrated in this story of scripture.

“A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:24-34)

The woman here had great desire to be healed, but that’s not what she told herself. She didn’t say, “I really would like to be healed,” or, “I hope something happens,” rather she said, “if I touch His clothing I WILL be healed.” Faith and desire are not the same. You can desire something all you want, but without the faith to receive what you desire, it becomes a pipe-dream. Desire drove her to Christ, but faith caused her to receive. What’s interesting is that she didn’t ask Him to heal her, He was completely unaware of her presence, but she took from Him. She withdrew from that river of power within Christ, without even voicing one request to Him. She simply believed and touched His garment. And what’s amazing is Jesus instantly said, “who touched Me,” because He felt power leave Him, He literally felt a measure of supernatural power being sucked out of His body. His disciples perplexed said, “You’re in a crowd of people, everyones touching You!” But only one touched in faith, and she received her miracle.

When we reach out in faith, we find our desire met. If we’re merely hoping God’s in a good mood, and perhaps He’s willing to move on our behalf, then we are living in the realm of uncertainty, and we can be certain that if we’re half convinced, we can expect to receive nothing from the Lord.

“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” (James 1:6-8)