Faith to Receive: Part 2

Our podcast is titled “Quality Christian Living.” We cover a plethora of subjects dealing with living a wonderful, abundant, quality Christian life. In the first few months of our podcast episodes, we addressed finances and how to live debt free. Then I spoke on building a platform of spiritual prosperity that will lead us to financial prosperity. These topics are covered in detail in my podcast on charismapodcastnetwork.com. In addition to these podcast episodes, I have written several books on finance, faith, generosity and my service in the Vietnam War. These books are available at davidcfriendauthor.com. Now let’s move on to my new series on Faith to Receive.

For the next few months, I will address with help from the Holy Spirit the topics of faith and prayer. We all need to have greater faith and understand how to have effective prayers. This series will examine how our dreams can and will come true. We must understand the importance of being focused during our times of prayer. Often, we allow distractions to rob us of having effective prayers. These distractions can be as simple as listening to the words in a song as we are trying to pray. I realize that many individuals love to listen to music while they are praying. However, my prayer time needs to be focused on the needs that I’m presenting to the Lord. Over the years, I have decided to listen to only instrumental music during a time of prayer.

As a matter of fact, during the over thirty years that I have studied to present a Bible lesson or church sermon, I have found it comforting to listen to music without any words. This may seem a little strange to some of you. But it is a great help to me to stay focused on my preparation to bring a message to our congregation. During prayer, my wife and me prefer to have instrumentals playing whether at home or at church. Now I realize that many Christians prefer to listen and sing along with worship music during their prayer time. Either way is wonderful to our God. Allow me to ask you if you find yourself singing the song you are listening to and it causes you to stop praying.

Now, we need to look ahead at the upcoming podcast episodes. I will address how greater prayers and greater results can come from our past experiences. We will examine the words that we speak and how they impact our faith. As a child, my parents often told me to be careful in what I said because it would affect what I believed. We all know those who speak positively and those who are always negative. The negative words we speak attack our faith to believe. The person who is always looking at the positive aspects of life is usually happier and healthier. The Word of God tells us to be positive and look for ways to encourage others to be more positive. This reminds me of Psalm 19:14 in the New International Version: “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord my Rock and my Redeemer.”

As the Lord directs me, I plan to speak on the topic of how we need to call things forth when we are praying in faith for a need. This reminds me of the apostle Paul’s teaching on calling forth those things that are not as though they are. This may have the greatest impact on our desire to have faith to receive. Stay with me as we seek greater faith to see greater miracles. {eoa]

David C. Friend was the founder and pastor of North Scottsdale Christian Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. He has served as the president of the Paradise Valley Chamber of Commerce and was chairman of the Grand Canyon University Foundation Board. Before answering God’s call and accepting the full-time position as pastor of North Scottsdale Christian, David spent 14 years in banking and owned a real estate development company for 20 years. He taught banking operations at Arizona community colleges. David resides in North Scottsdale with his wife, Sharon, and together they have two married children and six grandchildren. David is an award-winning author, veteran, entrepreneur, pastor, banker and teacher.