There are several Gospel stories that underscore the importance of faith.

After Jesus healed the woman who had been sick for 12 years, He told her, "Your faith has made you whole." (Matthew 9:22)

To the blind man Jesus said, "Go your way your faith has made you whole." (Mark 10:52)

The same message was given to the leper who returned to give thanks when he realized he was cured: "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." (Luke 17:19)

And, as we have pointed out before, Jesus often scolded His Disciples for their lack of faith - for example when they were frightened by the storm (Matthew 8:27), and when they ran out of bread (Matthew 16:8). Also, when Peter failed trying to walk on water, Jesus blamed his lack of faith. (Matthew 14:31)

Then too, we remember that when Jesus visited His home town of Nazareth, not many miracles occurred. Why? "Because of their lack of faith." (Matthew 13:58)

Other New Testament writers pick up on this theme.

James teaches that when someone prays, "He must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord." (James 1:6, 7)

The writer of the Book of Hebrews clearly states, "without faith it is impossible to please God." (Hebrews 11:6)

So today we have developed a kind of Christian sub-culture around this idea. This teaching makes it sound so easy: if you want it, you can have it - just believe; faith is the key.

Of course we understand how this works on a human level, by means of what is called the "power of positive thinking." Right now we have a major political campaign being built around this idea - thousands of people being coached to chant repeatedly "We Can!" "We Can!" "We Can!" The message is clear, "If you believe it, it will be."

And it works. Everyone knows that if you want to become President of the United States, you must heartily promote this positive attitude, so you promise security and prosperity - what ever you do, don't tell the truth!

Promise to cut taxes, but don't explain how much this will add to the national debt that our grandchildren will have to pay for.

Promise to add benefits - college for everyone, free health care for all, cheaper energy costs - without explaining how all these perks are going to be paid for.

What contemporary politician is going to come out and say, "Fellow Americans, things are going to get harder before they get easier, our economy is going to get worse before it gets better. We all need to get used to having less toys, less luxury. We all need to drive less, eat less, wear clothes longer before replacing them and trade in our Hummers for cycles, our McMansions for two bedroom ranches."

We don't want to hear that kind of talk - it would be un-American. We want to be positive and believe in the American dream of health and wealth for everyone. We want to hear positive promises even if it means a violation of truth.

This week I was amazed to learn that there have been athletes who have asked for, and who have been given fake steroid pills. Because they fooled themselves into believing they were given the real thing, these athletes actually performed better than before taking the placebo pills!

In the world of the church, preachers come along to assert the same message: faith is the key; if you believe, anything is possible. But when it comes to putting this kind of positive thinking into a religious context, we should be aware that there may be some unintended consequences that come with an imbalanced emphasis on faith as it is popularly understood.

That is, one result is that we may end up placing a greater burden on individual Christians because the byline is, "You're not getting what you prayed for because you don't believe."

Or if there's a problem that cannot be resolved, we conclude, "It's all your fault - you don't have enough faith."

And then we add even more to the burden when we take this line of Paul out of its context and declare, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." (Romans 14:23) Now there is the heavy burden of guilt.

In addition, we've created a religion of pilgrimages. If you don't think you have enough faith, then go to someone who does have that greater faith, they can be for you a surrogate believer - their faith will heal you or solve your financial problem.

Recently a member of our church was told about the great revival taking place in Africa, and was advised to go there to get healed. This member wisely responded that they believed that God is the same in Sussex County as He is in Central Africa.

Please don't be shocked when I tell you that whatever it is that needs to happen in your life, it's not all up to your faith. Among other things, that's the message of Acts 12 - Peter wasn't delivered from jail because of his faith or the church members' faith - he was set free in spite of the lack of faith. And there are other Bible accounts that have a similar story line.

When the angels told Abraham's wife Sarah that she would give birth to a child at age 90, did she believe? No, she laughed, and when this miracle child was born, she named him "Isaac." Do you know what that name means? It means "laughter." All through his life, whenever anyone would ask, "How did you get the name 'Laughter'"? Isaac would have to answer, "Because my mother did not believe - she laughed when she was told she would get pregnant with me."

Gideon didn't believe God when he was told that he could defeat the armies of Midian with 300 torch bearing bugle blowing soldiers, and he insisted that God prove it by creating a dry lamb's wool fleece laid out on a dew filled yard.

When a desperate father brought his demonized son to Jesus, the father was asked, "Do you believe?" The man said, "No." But Jesus healed the boy anyway.

Remember the story of the 10 lepers? Only one returned to give glory to God, and was told that he was cleansed as a result of his faith. But please notice that the other 9 were also healed!

Mary and Martha didn't believe that Jesus would raise their brother, Lazarus - but He did.

None of the disciples believed that Jesus would rise from the dead - Jesus rose anyway.

You see, there are many times when God does what He does, even without our faith!

As you know, this was certainly true of my obtaining a visa. If you had asked me a few months ago, "Do you believe you will be granted a visa?" I would have snapped back, "Of course not - once denied, the chance of getting permission to travel is zero." What made it even more unbelievable for me was that, upon the advice of a foreign co-worker, I was applying for a 5 year multiple entry visa. I couldn't obtain a six month visa, how could I ever expect to get a 5 year visa?

Soon after sending in the application, I received a phone call, and immediately thought, "Here we go again, now they're going to tell me the same thing as the last time." Instead, I was simply informed that hand-written applications were no longer accepted and I would have to do it on-line. Because our ICP office is in Michigan, I had sent my first application to the Chicago office, hoping that perhaps they wouldn't notice that I had been previously turned down from the New York office. The second call soon came indicating that even though our office was in Michigan, because I lived in New Jersey, my application would have to be sent to New York. After authorizing the FedEx charge, I thought, "Well, that's it, that'll be the end of it; when they get it in New York it will be all over."

Then another call came, and once again I braced for what I assumed to be the final denial. Instead, I was told that a tourist visa was not appropriate in my case, and I should file again on line, but change the classification to business visa. A few more days passed, and then I received an email stating that my application was now being passed on to the officials at the Consulate - up to then it had been handled by an out-sourcing company.

Again, my first reaction was to believe, "that's the end of it." In fact, I didn't even pay attention to some additional wording in the email that stated that my passport was being returned to me. When it did arrive two days later, I didn't even bother to open the FedEx package, sure that my request was being denied. I had absolutely no faith at all! However, at 4:00 a.m., I awoke with the thought, "If they returned my passport, maybe it contains my visa." I went back to sleep, but 2 1/2 hours later when I got up, I immediately opened the envelope, and to my utter amazement, there it was, stamped in my passport, a 5 year multiple entry visa!

It all came to pass without any faith on my part - which had the effect on me of proving that God had a purpose for me to continue fulfilling, and He would accomplish His purpose whether I believed or not.

At the same time, we must also point out that sometimes God doesn't give us what we want even if we do claim to have faith. That's what James meant when he wrote, "When you ask [God], you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." (James 4:2, 3)

Notice, the Scripture doesn't say, "You don't get what you want because you don't believe, but you don't get it because your motives are wrong."

Someone may protest, then why pray? For starters - He said to. But also, we pray so that when the answer comes, even though we may not have had much - or any - faith, we will be forced to conclude that God is at work and we will give the glory belonging to Him.

Unfortunately, it seems that at times faith and works get confused; it seems that for some people, faith is the work - faith is something you have to do in order to get results. But if that's the case, then it feels more like works than grace, which is a gift requiring nothing in order to be given.

If we're not careful, faith can turn out to be nothing more than a religious version of the mental and psychological process called visualization - to believe is to see it in your mind's eye. But I think this gives us way too much power, and we end up telling God what to do, as if to say, "I believe, so You have to do it!"

However, Biblical faith is something very different, and we need to stop beating up on ourselves over our weak faith and simply walk by faith, that is, simply trust in God.

Remember the three Hebrew men heading for the furnace of certain death? They basically said, "We believe God can deliver us, but we don't know if He will, and we'll leave it up to him - we trust in God." That's faith.

Jesus Himself prayed, "Not my will but yours be done." He trusted in His Father. That's faith.

Listen - if you don't have time to read your Bible, at least take the time to read your dollar bill - I know some want to change it, but it still has on it the words, "In God We Trust."

Let's go back to Peter's story. I'm sure that as Peter was arrested and marched down the street toward the jail, there were Christians who, holding back the tears cried out, "Peter, we'll be praying for you." And I'm sure that after he was chained to two burly Roman soldiers and finally got to lie down on the cold stone floor of the damp prison - I'm sure that Peter prayed. He knew what had already happened to James, his life-long friend and fellow follower of Jesus - he knew now it would be his turn to face the executioner.

But then he fell asleep. He fell asleep, placing his life in God's hands - Peter trusted God.

Did he have faith to believe that his prayer and the prayers of all his friends would be answered? Evidently not. Suddenly he felt a poke in his side, looked up and said, "Who are you?" At the same time, the chains binding his wrists fell silently to the stone floor as the visitor quietly told him to hurry up, put on his robe and sandals and follow him. When Peter saw the heavy metal prison door swing open without anyone turning a key, he must have thought, "This is cool! What a nice dream!" When he finally realized it wasn't a dream, he went to where he knew the church people would be meeting for prayer. When he got there, that locked door didn't open so easily, even when he kept knocking. The praying people inside didn't have any more faith than Peter.

So if it wasn't Peter's faith or the praying people's faith that unlocked the prison doors to set him free, what was it? Simply put, it was God's power fulfilling God's purpose. In His supreme wisdom, Peter's life's work was not yet done.

Here's the message: God has a plan and a purpose for your life - can you trust in that? Can you go to sleep even when everything looks black and bleak? Can you believe that when you pray for wholeness, protection and progress, God will provide, not because you're a good person and deserve it, and not even because you're convinced it's going to happen, but simply because God's righteous purposes will prevail?

This week I attended a prayer meeting which, like so many such meetings, included much talk and little prayer. All the talk was about praying for revival. As the talk was going on, I wondered why it was that I was so bothered by this. At first I thought it must because I'm just tired of hearing this never ending call for revival - I've been hearing it for more years than I care to admit. But then I remembered the simple illustration provided several years ago by Steven Covey who wrote the respected book, "7 Habits of Highly Successful People." In that book, he pointed out how so many people are working hard to climb the ladder of success, only to find out later that the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. Then it occurred to me, the ladder should not be leaning against the "revival" wall. Did Jesus say, "Seek first revival and all these things shall be added unto you"? No, Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you."

Today we say, don't strive to conjure up faith in order to get what you want; instead, strive to submit to the rule of God and the righteousness of God. To submit to the rule of God is to trust Him completely, to rest, to sleep in total confidence that He will fulfill His purposes in this world and in your life. To submit to the righteousness of God is to live each day to please him in thought, word, and deed.

Too many people have quoted the verse, "Faith comes by hearing the word." So, they say, read the Word so that your faith can be enhanced and you can get from God what you want. That's the ladder leaning against the wrong wall. Instead, we read the Word so we can learn how we should live in righteousness, and shine as lights in a darkened world.

1. Why do many people seem to relate so well with Simon Peter, the Disciple?

2. What was the name of the Disciple whom Herod killed before arresting Peter and sending him to prison?

3. What is it about the story of Peter's "jail-break" that demonstrates that there was little or no faith involved in his miraculous deliverance?

4. Can you provide any examples of what Jesus said to promote the importance of faith?

5. What was blamed for Peter's failure to walk on water or there being relatively few miracles in Nazareth?

6. There is a practice in pop-psychology that is often confused with faith. What is it?

7. What is the good and the bad of election year political promises?

8. How is it that placebo pills, used instead of real steroids, can help an athlete's performance, and is this a good idea?

9. What may be some unintended consequences of an imbalanced emphasis on faith as it is popularly understood?

10. For the last more than 50 years, American people have flocked to be prayed for by faith healers. Why?

11. What is the meaning of the name given to Abraham's son, and why did he get that name?

12. Who were some of the people in Jesus' day who were recipients of miracles even though it was apparent it was not due to their faith?

13. There may be times when we pray, even with faith, but do not get what we pray for. Why?

14. For many people, faith is the ability to want something and to visualize it even though it is not there. How is this different from trust in God?

15. In a practical way, how do we "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness"?