I just saw this in a blog post from Praying Medic and I thought it particularly thought-provoking. Just posting here...
“Did you ever notice that Jesus never commanded the water to turn to wine during the Wedding Feast at Cana?
Did you ever notice that Jesus never commanded the food to be multiplied when He fed the five thousand?
Did you ever notice that when Jesus healed the ten lepers (where one came back to thank Him), He did not command them to be healed?
That He never commanded the fish to gather next to Peter's boat but only asked Peter to cast his net on the other side?
There is another level of faith that people can operate at. Jesus walked in it. It is above praying for God to do something, and it is even above commanding something to occur in Jesus' Name. It is simply believing that what you are wanting to happen has ALREADY happened and then acting on that belief. Jesus TOLD the servants to pour water from the jars into a cup and to take it to the master of the banquet. Jesus TOLD His disciples to divide and distribute bread. Jesus TOLD the ten lepers to go to a priest so that they could be declared clean of leprosy. Jesus TOLD Peter to cast his net on the other side of the boat.
In NONE of these cases did Jesus command anything to happen or pray for it to happen. He acted as if it had already happened. He copied what He saw the Father doing. He flowed perfectly with the Holy Spirit in each of those situations and the power of God was released to create a miracle as a result. It's not taught in today's church but He wants us to learn how to do it. It requires walking full of God's Spirit and God's Word, so we walk in the full light of Heaven and can see into the Father's heart. Which we can do because we are one spirit with Jesus and are hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3)
You will notice that Jesus put a very great emphasis on WORDS. One reason is that words TEACH your heart to believe. We know this because faith comes by HEARING and hearing by the Word of God. The church has put a great deal of emphasis on teaching our minds what to think by reading God's Word, but little emphasis on TEACHING our hearts what to believe by SPEAKING God's Word.
Once we begin TRAINING our hearts what to believe by SPEAKING God's Word, we will begin to operate in faith like Jesus did. Faith, the way Jesus taught it, is not believing something WILL happen but believing that something HAS HAPPENED. We know this because He said "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you HAVE received it and you will have it." The church has confused hope with faith.
The Father is more faithful to keep His Word than we know. He is an eternal being. So there is no past, present, of future with Him. If you asked Him what His name was a hundred years ago, He would say "I AM". If you ask Him today what His Name is, He will say "I AM", and if you ask Him a million years from now, He will say "I AM" So we need to leave the idea of TIME out of our prayers. When you ask Him for something that you KNOW is His Will, IT'S YOURS. We have made the mistake of believing that if we do not SEE the answer, we do not HAVE IT. That is lending more authority to what our eyes say than to what God's Word says. And God has HONORED His Word even above His Name. So If God Honors His Word THAT MUCH, SO SHOULD WE by believing it. If He says its ours in His Word, its ours, period. The Word of God says Healing is ours. We have been given it IN THE PAST. "By His Stripes you WERE healed." So if it has already been given to us, and we train our hearts to believe that by speaking His Word into our hearts, then that eliminates all doubt, because you can only doubt the occurrence of things IN THE FUTURE, not the past.
This is the key to mountain moving faith, because this definition of faith eliminates ALL DOUBT. It is what Jesus walked in. And it is what the Father wants us to walk in.”
~ Jeffrey Stewart