Chapter 5

Exercising Your Faith: Prayer and Thanksgiving

We will continue to explore the work of Christ and its effect on us in greater detail throughout the book, but before we do, I can hardly express how important it is for us to begin believing God's word about what he's done to us. Given that faith is the access to his grace (see Romans 5:2), I desire to equip you, as soon as possible, to begin exercising whatever measure of faith you currently have.

While the temptation may be to delay belief until we receive understanding, we must be careful not to fall into this trap (see Proverbs 3:5). Faith says to God, "Though I do not yet understand, I will agree with your word, and I will trust you to give me understanding at the right time." Let this be the way that we think moving forward. For God is faithful to teach the humble.

The Mindset of Christ

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

For a long time, this verse seemed impossibly burdensome to me. Who in the world is capable of fulfilling such an all-encompassing thing? Despite all my sincere efforts to do so, on any given day, I might have gone hours without even thinking about the Lord, let alone praying and giving thanks constantly. Then, of course, because I reckoned this sinful (instead of simply the result of being undeveloped in the Lord), I felt like a fraud and a failure. And while one might be able to pray in this defeated and self-deprecated state of mind, can one honestly give thanks and rejoice? I certainly could not. Therefore, failure to obey this scripture led to more failure to obey this scripture. This is how condemnation works, by the way.

It helped me tremendously to realize that this scripture was not meant to remind me of all the times I failed to rejoice, pray, or give thanks. It was there so I could forget the past and be free to do all these things now. Isn't it quite amazing that God's will for you right now is to rejoice (be happy), pray (fellowship with him), and give thanks (be grateful)? If you think about it, this necessarily means that to dwell on my sin, my failures, my forgetfulness, my lack of growth, my trauma, my hang-ups, etc., is opposite to the will of God and disobedient to this scripture. As it turns out, the type of mindfulness that Paul prescribes here — which does not allow you to dwell on these things — is the basic rubric for godly living (see also Philippians 4:4-9). It is the mindset necessary to abide in God and, as a result of abiding, bear fruit and obey his commands. It is the mindset of Christ, and more, a description of the new life we have in him — full of joy, gratitude, and fellowship with God — which we are free to walk in at every moment of our lives despite what has occurred over the last ten years, ten days, ten hours, or ten seconds. It is a call to immediately and radically "forget what lies behind" (see Philippians 3:13) and to remember all that is ours in Christ Jesus.

Building Faith in Prayer

We dare not move on before applying it right now. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, put this scripture into practice. To be clear, I do not mean to say that you should think about how to rejoice generally or all the time. Instead, I am telling you to look to the Lord in your heart and rejoice now. Do not think about how to give thanks in every moment for the rest of your life; give thanks in this moment of your life, for this moment is the only moment in which you can do anything. You are not responsible for future moments. (You will be when they come, but then they will be the present moment, not the future.) And it is only in learning to be faithful with the present moment that we will be prepared to do the same with future moments as they become the present.

If this is new to you, I might suggest you begin by thanking God for that which you can see, the blessings right in front of your eyes — i.e., the roof over your head, the sleep you got last night, the food he has put on the table, the ability he's given you to work, the loved ones he has placed in your life, the warmth of the sun, the beauty of his creation, etc. When it comes to thankfulness, this is where most people will start, which is good and right and ought to be.

But it is worth mentioning that the psychology of today and many world religions will also tell you to practice gratefulness. What makes this different is, first and foremost, that we believers express our thanks to the one true Giver. Therefore, our thanksgiving is substantiated in truth, which sets us free, and is not merely positive thinking or self-affirmation.

Because our prayer is in Christ to God, even when giving thanks for elementary things, you exercise more faith than you may realize. To do so, you must first believe that God exists, then that God hears you, that God is good, that he has given you these things to enjoy, that he desires you to be happy, that he loves you, and much more. A wide variety of truths must be "put on," or believed, to sincerely thank God for something.

This becomes exceedingly true when life makes it challenging to give thanks. At the most basic level — since faith is "the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1), and since we cannot see God — every prayer of thanksgiving, which requires you to acknowledge an unseen God, requires you to exercise your faith. And when you exercise this muscle, it grows.

But now, let us go a step further. For it is quite unfortunate that in their daily prayers many never make it beyond giving thanks for what they can see or rejoicing in what they can feel. So when the feelings fade or circumstances go sour, their gratefulness goes out the door, and they are ill-equipped to remain (i.e., abide) in Christ. Threaten their financial stability, mess with their health, or add some relational conflict to their lives, and most Christians today will look anything but grateful. This is, at least in part, because the scope of their everyday prayers does not extend beyond things earthly and temporal. They have not learned to set their minds on things above (see Colossians 3:1-2), so they remain anchored in and affected by things below, just like everyone else. And being anchored in things on earth, when these things are shaken or taken, the believer is shaken or taken, too. In this way, it is easy for the ruler of this world, Satan, to pull the foundation out from under these Christians and sink them back into the embittered, entitled, ungrateful, pessimistic, self-loathing, and self-focused state of mind they were saved from.

On the contrary, the one who fixes the eyes of their heart on Jesus, beyond what they can see or feel, and upon all the riches hidden in Christ, anchors themselves in an unshakeable kingdom and immediately gains access to a more vast and abundant supply of resources than are contained in all the universe.

Take a moment to pause and reflect on the following scriptures, considering thoughtfully what the apostles were talking about when they reference "all things" and "every spiritual blessing":

"For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's and Christ is God's." (1 Corinthians 3:22-23)

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…" (Ephesians 1:3)

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence…" (2 Peter 1:3)

"Every good gift and every perfect gift [from above is] coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." (James 1:17)

Seriously, what on earth are they talking about? Well, perhaps not much "on earth."

It is pretty clear in the New Testament that much of what God has given us in Christ remains to be seen and, yet, is still ours nonetheless. These things are spiritual and eternal, which never change and always will be. They cannot be taken from us by anyone or anything, and therefore, they serve as a firm foundation through even the most difficult trials. While many of these "spiritual blessings" may still be a mystery to us, let us trust that God desires to reveal all that is ours in Christ Jesus. (Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1:15-19 is proof of this fact.) And in the meantime, we are not without some knowledge of these spiritual blessings. First and foremost, we have heard of God's love for us (see Romans 8:35-39 or John 3:16-18), which has been revealed most perfectly through his son, Jesus Christ. Do you feel his love all the time? Probably not. Can you give thanks for his love all the time? You most certainly can. So, do it (again, not all the time, but now).

Here's another example. We also ought to know that we have fellowship with God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — through no work of our own but by the work of Jesus and faith in him. Do you feel the life of God within you at all times? Do you see the perfect fruit of it in every area of your life? I would guess not. But can you still rejoice in this fellowship as if it is true and complete (because it is)? Absolutely. And you ought to!

It should go without saying that you do not need to feel the truth for it to be true. It is true regardless of how you feel. Nor do you need to feel it to give thanks for it; you only need to believe it. So if God's word reveals something to you that is worthy of your gratitude, and you realize that you have been aligning yourself with a different word, this is an opportunity to repent (i.e., to change your thinking). You can simply agree with his word, receive it with humility, and express thanks the best you know how, regardless of how you feel. The goal here is not to conjure up the right feelings, since that is the fruit that only God can produce in you, but to find agreement with the word of God in your mind. For who are we to come to any conclusion other than what God has taught us? Therefore, agreeing with God requires not understanding but humility.

You may find that practicing this reveals how your sight and feelings have been dictating your beliefs. Give thanks for that revelation! You are learning the way of the righteous, the way of faith.

And even if these were the only two pieces of knowledge that God had given you — that he loves you and that you have fellowship with him — you have a sufficient starting point to begin growing in the Lord. Here, what I would tell you is no different than what I would tell someone with vast amounts of knowledge: Be faithful with the understanding God has given you thus far, and he will give you more in time. "For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance…" (Matthew 13:12; cf. Matthew 25:29). Just because you have received knowledge does not mean you are established in it. And why would God lay more bricks on top of a weak foundation?

To this point, if you find that your conviction of these unseen truths is easily overshadowed by the challenges of life, often leading you to ungratefulness; if you tend to be double-minded in the knowledge the Lord has given you, led to doubt, discouragement, or despair; if you have yet to bear the fruit which the knowledge of God should consistently produce; then take it as evidence that you have yet to be established in the truth God has shown you and that only exercising your faith through trial will lead to the growth you desire. You have not proven entirely faithful with a piece of knowledge until it is unwavering in your mind through testing and producing the fruit it should, like joy and peace that isn't contingent on circumstance.

When God says something is true but it cannot be accessed by sight, feelings, or natural reasoning, we must access it by faith. This begins with rejoicing and thanking God for it in prayer, humbly coming into agreement with his word.

Now, let's apply this to some of the things we know about his grace.

Thank God that he has forgiven and even forgotten your sins (see Jeremiah 31:34 and Hebrews 10:17). Thank him for cleansing you of all your sin (1 John 1:7, 9). Thank him for pouring his love into your heart (see Romans 5:5) and causing you to love him back (see 1 Peter 1:8 and Ephesians 6:24). Thank him for making you dead to sin, freeing you from sin, and enslaving you to righteousness (see Romans 6). Thank him for joining your spirit to his Spirit and making your body his temple (see 1 Corinthians 6:17-20). Thank him for making you a new creation (see 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15), causing you to be born again (see 1 Peter 1:3, 23), born of God (see 1 John 3), after his image and likeness, in righteousness and holiness (see Ephesians 4:24). Thank him for the wisdom he has provided or will provide you as you seek to understand more (see James 1:5-8). And thank him for his patience and kindness toward you as you struggle to figure things out (see Psalm 86:15).

Many will be tempted to keep reading instead of pausing and doing this right now. But I ask you again, please do not move on before looking to God and talking to him this way.

As you encounter unseen truths like this, my simple encouragement is this: As soon as you realize what God said, start thanking him for it. If you find that you cannot yet fully agree with it yet, then present it to God, weigh it against scripture, submit it to your brothers and sisters in Christ (though don't be so naive to expect that all will agree), and ask God to confirm in your spirit whether it is true. He is your teacher and has promised to lead you into all truth (see John 16:13). Once he does, begin "putting it on," wearing it, walking in it, by faith with thanksgiving. This is the most practical and immediate way of exercising your faith.

Are you being attacked, persecuted, mocked, or ridiculed? Rejoice in prayer. Have you been taken advantage of, victimized, experienced loss, or suffered trauma? Give thanks in prayer. Are you currently in the throws of temptation, with sin crouching at the door? Rejoice in prayer. Did you just fall back into some habitual sin for the umpteenth time? Give thanks in prayer. What exactly should you give thanks for? Ask God what he's thinking about, and I am sure something beautiful will come to mind. Going back to 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul chose his words carefully: "always," "without ceasing," and "in all circumstances." This was no mistake, nor was it foolish or near-sighted. He did not imply there would be exceptions because there are no exceptions.

This is where many will be inclined to say things like, "Okay, but you don't understand what I'm going through," or "I get what you're saying, but it's just not that simple," or "Sure, but I still need to understand more of my past before I can move on." Yet the truth remains: if you want to experience the life of God, then you must learn how God thinks. And there is never a moment where God is not full of joy, peace, and thanksgiving. He doesn't fix his mind on things that give no life. Therefore, let there be no reason ever again to justify a different way of thinking and deny yourself this extraordinary right as a redeemed child of God.

You may be wondering, though, how can we genuinely rejoice when we feel everything but joy? How can we sincerely give thanks when our circumstances do not inspire gratitude? Let God be the judge of your sincerity, and know that he does not judge your feelings but your heart. Any sincere attempt to humbly agree with God's word will always be honored and blessed by God.

Some will call this kind of thinking "denial," and, in a way, I guess it is. Perhaps we should take it as a compliment, for he says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself…" (Matthew 16:24, my italics). When we gave Jesus our life, we gave up our "right" to know anything other than what God says is true. So, when the truth cannot be readily seen or felt, we must deny that what we see and feel is true. I encourage you to read that sentence one more time. Let us make no mistake about it. If you are in the mind of Christ, you are out of your mind. And there is no better way to live.

It is time to start believing God for what he says — no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Believing You Are Dead to Sin

On the matter of our very real death to sin, let us now exercise our faith, that we may eventually bear the fruit of it.

I will assume that you know the importance of acknowledging your sin before God (see, for example, Psalm 32 or 1 John 1:5-10). If you are a Christian, you should be under no illusion about your need for his grace. But you have two options when you come to God for this purpose. One will leave you perpetually waiting on his grace; the other will leave you powerfully walking in it. Let's explore both.

The first way to pray is to ask God for that which we think we do not yet have. Ask him for forgiveness, hoping to persuade him. Ask him for freedom, wondering when he will provide it. Present yourself to him broken and lacking, insisting that he must still do something to deliver you from your unholy desires and bondage to sin. Etc.

There is something about this kind of prayer that, to the natural mind, feels more humble, more righteous, and perhaps even more accurate, but it is not grounded in God's grace and promises (i.e., the truth). It is contrary to his word, and it is the antithesis of freedom and victory, stripping faith of all its immediate practical value and turning it into nothing more than hope for the future. But hope is for the future; faith is for now. It is how we access God now and all he has given us for today.

So, the second and far better way to pray is to praise God and thank him for what he has already given us. Do we confess our sins? Yes. But then we thank him for forgiving us and cleansing us from all unrighteousness (see 1 John 1:9). Do we pray as Jesus taught us: "Father, forgive us our debts…" (see Matthew 6:12 and Luke 11:12)? Yes. But read it yourself and see that we are not asking him to forgive us as if we need to wait for an answer or convince him to do something he hasn't already done. God (in Jesus) told us to tell God to forgive us because God forgives us. Thus, we call upon his forgiveness, remembering the gospel, and by faith, in unison with God, we apply it to our lives. Should we ask God for help in overcoming our sins? Yes. But rather than begging him to help us die to ourselves, we give thanks that we have already died (see Romans 6:1-11). Rather than asking that he make us new, we praise him because he already has (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).

It is not the slightest bit offensive to God that we so boldly proclaim such things, for they are only accurate, and we accomplished none of them on our own. Indeed, this is the radical nature of grace that God had in mind when he sent forth his Son to save whoever would simply believe.

Thus, this kind of prayer is a great starting point for walking by faith and not by sight. It is not about what we can see or understand. It is about the fact that coming to any conclusion other than God's conclusion is the essence of pride and deceit, thinking one knows. If God says, "You're free from sin!" yet you continue to cry, "God, free me from sin!" what does this say about you and the state you are in? Can this prayer possibly be justified, or must we call it unbelief?

Not to mention, how I am encouraging you to think and pray is nothing short of a biblical command. As Paul says, "you… must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). And "present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life…" (Romans 6:13). What does it say about us if we always present ourselves to God as broken, empty, dirty sinners? This is certainly not the picture of the Christian life put forth in the New Testament. Call it "honest" if you like, but then you must call God a liar since, according to his gospel, Jesus has made you new, filled you with his Spirit, brought you to life, cleansed your heart, and called you a saint. Christians are to "be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might" (Ephesians 6:10). Yet many Christians have spent their whole lives coming to God weak and broken. And every time they ask that he fix them, I imagine him looking down and saying, "What more do you want me to do?" It appears to them that he never answers their prayers, but in reality, they were answered at the Cross.

I want to clarify now that I am not diminishing the importance of recognizing one's depravity, brokenness, and need for God. To be sure, this is the only kind of soil that is receptive to the seed of the gospel. But once the gospel seed has been effectively planted and a new life born, "depravity" and "brokenness" are no longer accurate descriptions of the one who has believed and received this new life. "[Y]ou have been born again… through the living and abiding word of God… And this word is the good news that was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:23-25). "[A]t one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8). The kind of prayer where we present ourselves to God as broken sinners is only appropriate until the point that we are delivered from such a state, which is at the moment we are born again, not the moment we become mature.

Once, we were broken; now, we are fixed (unless the gospel is untrue). Do we think that somehow God made us new, yet not new enough? He removed our old hearts and gave us a new one (see Ezekiel 36:26). Do we suppose the surgery was unsuccessful? Should God be sued for malpractice or false advertising? Is the work of Jesus insufficient?

You might also think of it this way. We used to be in desperate need of God in the sense that we did not have him. And while we will always continue to need him, we will never again need him in the same sense as before; for now, we have him. Therefore, a believer's desperate plea for God's presence in their life is a clear sign that they are living out of their feelings, not the gospel truth. Jesus promised, "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20), and now we know that he dwells within us. So it is only appropriate to say, "Lord, I need you" if we follow with the acknowledgment, "Lord, thank you that I have you." It is only appropriate to say, "Lord, forgive me" if one simultaneously says, "Lord, thank you for forgiving me." And, oh, what joy this brings! Try it now.

Let us never again think we must wait for freedom and sanctification. His word says that "[h]is divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness" (1 Peter 1:3, my italics). Thus, we have all that we need today for life and godliness, and if we lack anything at all, let us realize that we lack faith, not grace. If we are to ask God for help in anything, let us first ask for help to believe the good news. If we are to strive for anything, let us "strive to enter that rest," which comes only from believing that his work is finished. There is no shame in saying, "Lord, I believe; help me with my unbelief!" (see Mark 9:24) It may even be that, for the first time in a while, we will actually be praying a prayer that he can answer.

An Example of Faith in the Midst of Temptation

One morning, as I was praying, my wife entered the room and sat down to do the same. As I was finishing up my prayers, I felt an unusual urge to pray over her, although I did not know why. So I offered to lay my hands on her, and she accepted my offer. At one point, while praying over her, I had a strong sense of God's presence over us. It was a wonderful feeling! I voiced this by saying to my wife, "Wow, do you feel that?!" She did not respond in the moment, but I thought nothing of it, as the question was somewhat rhetorical, anyway. Believing that I had kicked off her day with a good, husbandly blessing, I finished my prayer, left the room, and went about my day.

Little did I know, she had woken up feeling unusually far from God that morning. Inwardly, she was feeling weak and weighed down by his apparent absence. So when I reveled in his presence and asked if she could feel it, too, I only made matters far worse because she did not feel a thing! Immediately, this made her wonder if something was wrong with her since she could not feel what I felt. And it reaffirmed her suspicion that God was not with her. How horrible a feeling, but how excellent an opportunity! For there is no better time to grow in one's faith than when we cannot see or feel what God's word says is true.

To my wife's credit, this is not the end of the story. At that point in our lives, we had just begun learning how to walk by faith. And after I left the room, when she was alone with God, she had a decision to make. Was she going to allow her feelings to dictate her beliefs, or would she fight to believe what God's word clearly says is true? Was she going to give in to this despair, wonder why God was not with her, and begrudgingly go about her day "without" him? Or was she going to renounce her reliance on the flesh and rejoice in the reality of his presence and fullness in her life?

That day, she chose the latter of the two. She thanked God for his perfect presence, for never leaving her, and for always being close, even though she did not feel it. She praised him for making her new and fully pleasing to him despite her feelings of shame and unworthiness. She chose not to focus on how she felt but instead to focus on God's word.

Worth noting is that she did not have to pretend that she felt differently. She could acknowledge how she felt while recognizing the irrelevance of her feelings and proclaiming the truth over her life. It was short and simple, but it was powerful. Within ten or fifteen minutes, she felt as close to God as ever and learned firsthand the power of faith to overcome.

How easily she could have succumbed to her feelings, believing the lies of the enemy who so manipulates the flesh. It is not hard to imagine how she might have reached out to her Christian friends that day, asking them to pray for her spiritual state as if there were no other recourse besides prayer and waiting. And worse, who knows how long this spiritual stupor could have continued as she waited on God to answer her prayer. Days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. Before long, she determines that she is in a "dry season" and, even longer, a "spiritual desert" — blindly standing at the eternal wellspring of life, yet waiting for God to provide refreshment. And if ever she did start to feel better about things, she'd be as much a slave to her flesh as ever before, still rising and falling with the fickleness of feelings, making Satan's job easy as he plays her like a fiddle. No doubt, she would have remained in spiritual infancy, never having found her way to "the pure spiritual milk" (1 Peter 2:2) by which one grows.

This story highlights how one begins to walk in faith and overcome. It really is this simple. There is no promise that it will be easy — in fact, quite the opposite. But every effort to believe in the face of lies will result in strength and sanctification that we never could have obtained otherwise.

You might now wonder, "How often do I do this?' Am I just supposed to rejoice and give thanks all the time?" And in response, I would lead you back to the scripture from the beginning of this chapter:

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

I have found no better way to remain grounded in Jesus than being constant in thanksgiving, which is why we are told to do it all the time. If you want to be established in the faith, then abound in thanksgiving for every promise, every gift, every truth, and every command in Scripture (see also Colossians 2:6-7).

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