"Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." (Mark 11:23-24)

"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Hebrews 11:7)

Many people thought they had faith in God until the moment they became aware of heaviness of their situation and spiritual condition, and then they found they missed faith. They do not believe that God is going to hear their voices and grant them.

A preacher, asked to explain how it is possible to build up a true faith in God and His voice, used a simple example:

After the service, before the gathered people, he took a boy, put him on a wall, then walked away a little and said: "Jump to me"! The boy jumped right into his hands. Then the preacher took another boy and said: "Jump"! But the boy began to cry. He was afraid to jump because he did not have faith that he will be caught.

"Why did the first boy have the faith to jump but the second one not?", the preacher asked the people. "Because the first boy is your son!" replied the gathered. Son knows his father and therefore has trust in him.

Confidence in Christ is also gained by an acquaintance and associating with him.

How are we establishing the community with Christ?

By conversation!

We turn to Him in prayer and He answers through a reasonable idea about His character which we build by studying the Scriptures.

When, during the prayer we ask Him to show us His face, He is uncovering Himself through the words from the Bible and He is showing us His love and grace toward people who are as sinful as we are.

The result of communion with Jesus is friendship, and friendship results in faith.

"So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ." (Romans 10:17)

If we do not have faith in God, that He wants and can help us, if we have doubts that he is going to give what is really good to our souls, it means that we do not know Him well.

Someone noticed: "Faith is not given to people who are looking for it, but to those who are searching for Christ."

The example of a priest with a faithful and unfaithful boy showed us in which direction we have to make a mental effort if we want to get real faith. In non-Bible doctrines we meet a building of faith by means of a "techniques".

"We can strengthen the faith in God by repeating His name!" (Sai Baba)

If we want to build up a confidence in someone, will repeating his name help us?

Would the boy from the mentioned example have had faith in his father had he not been a witness of his love in his life?

If we want to establish faith in another person by provoking sentimental feelings for that person, instead of logical investigation of what that person is like, it is very possible that we will see too late, because of our prejudice, that we are cheated. Faith should have logical and not psychological (sentimental) foundations.

We cannot build up a salutary faith by repeating God's name or notions reflecting God's character, and because our understanding of notions of God's character, His love, goodness and justice is defined by our knowledge about God's acting, not by the very form of the notions of love, goodness and righteousness.

That is why it is necessary to use common sense, in order that by analyzing Gods actions we can understand a true meaning of the mentioned concepts or we will be tempted to understand them in a way common for our own sinful nature. (Divine love is often put on the level of human sentiments, and God's righteousness is being interpreted superficially, as if it condemns only bad intentions, etc ...) Only a sublime idea about God's character and in our mind can open the door of our heart to God.

If a system of repeating God's name is not in a service of building of salutary faith, why it is used by many as a way of salvation?

Because they are trying in that way to replace a lack of knowing God and real confidence in His character.

To get a really clear answer to this question, let us remember the second boy from the previous example who was standing on the wall and crying because he was afraid of jumping. By long repeating the preacher's maybe this boy could have got the feelings of security and courage to jump, but it would not have been the faith but only the feeling (self-conviction in an assumption) of security.

The foundation of meditation is emotional experience. In this we find the difference between function of a real prayer and meditation:

"When I pray, I think that God is high above me, above my head. When I meditate I feel that God is deeply inside me, in my heart." (Sri Chinmoj, Meditation, 75)

Those who have replaced sinful pleasures with meditation just replaced one burden with another. They are still burdened as much as before.

Meditation is followed by different experiential sensations, whereby man feels that his troubles are solved. He feels that longings of his soul are satisfied. However, feelings are not competent. Behind the feelings, the essential motives remained same (sinful). The discordance of his motives of behavior with commandments of God's moral law reveals that his spiritual needs have been just suppressed, but not satisfied. That is why those who meditate either discard the importance of Ten Commandments, or interpret them superficially, in order to justify the fanaticism driving them.

We have to admit that it is more easily to a sinful heart to repeat some name, mantra or prayer than to put all its strength in the direction of knowing Him Who is the only one who can justify human faith. Love is opposite to our fallen nature and that is why a simple and logical communication with God is difficult until we obey our will to God's one. As we do not have love in our heart, we find it hard to study the Gospels and to think about God in the light of His face.

When we want to make a contact and build friendship with an acquaintance, we do not look into ourselves and our own problems in the associating with him, but we look at him: we look for hearing his voice and his solutions.

Many people lack faith because they have put their problems, whether circumstances or character is concerned, between God's face and theirs. Meanwhile, we should not believe what we are asking in prayer for, but in Someone to whom we are praying. If we look at the problem, instead at the Saviour, we will not be able to acquaint Him and to build up the needed salutary faith that He can and wants to grant our prayers.

In the same way, repeating a mantra or prayer distracts man from a real meeting with God because it deprives him of the attention that he would direct toward acquainting Him as a character. The very attempt to make a communion with God through meditation distorts the idea about God's character, and therefore Holy Spirit leaves us. God is being represented as an automaton who will reply with his blessings after enough long asking in a certain "code".

A Christian is praying to God with the same words he would talk with Jesus with were He near him, physically present. How did Jesus' disciples talk to their Teacher? They were not repeating one sentence like mantra, but they were carrying out the burdens of their souls and asking for help from Him. We can observe the same thing in prayers which God's son directed to His father. Every following prayer of Jesus was different from the previous one, even if it had the same meaning (Compare verse 39 of Chapter 26 of Matthew with verse 42 of the same book). Nowhere in the Bible a magic sentence is written which provokes magical reactions, because God wants one normal and alive experience of the meeting and community with man based on love.

For those who see in a prayer a salutary techniques; who think that they will receive God's mercy by long repeating of certain prayers and mantras, Jesus says:

"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." (Matthew 6:7)

Why not ask God by a simple prayer (in our own sincere words) for what we need ?!

The first reason why our prayers become empty and we are looking for a supplement in a certain techniques is our non-awareness of what we really need; we are not aware of our spiritual needs.

This is happening because we do not know God! We do not know the sublime nature of His character so that we can understand the necessity of reforming our own character. We are not aware of the need for forgiveness and a change of heart. The second reason why we try to supplement our prayers with certain "techniques" is because we do not have faith in God that He is going to do what He has promised if we ask for it.

This happens, also, because we do not know God! We do not trust that He is love because we do not know Him.

Meeting with God results in an unpleasant but real awareness of our own loss. Submission to Christ asks for a willing effort. It is easier to go the shorter way which does not require the meeting with Christ, self-humiliation and renouncing our own "Self". Then we can, for hours, utter the same mantra or prayer and nourish our own proud "Self".

God does not want to burden us with a need for special feelings. We can always rely on Him with a simple faith, because He is always the same, no matter what we think or feel about Him.

"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy." "For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." (Psalm 103:8. Malachi 3:7)

Those who are meditating do not know God and therefore believe Him, that He is love and that He is going to do what He promised. Because they do not rely on God they can only rely on themselves and their feelings, to build their own security in those feelings.

"Still, we should have on our mind, when we pray, that we are as individuals separated from God. We feel that he is in one place and we are in another. Then, we are not in our highest conscience, where we feel that we are one with God." (Sri Chinmoj, Meditation, 77)

"In the prayer we feel that we have nothing and that God has everything. In meditation, we know that everything God has, we also have or we are going to have one day. We feel that we are same as God, with only difference that we still have not expressed our own divinity.

We feel (during the prayer) that God is high up while we are deeply down. We see the abyss between His and our being. We are looking up to Him and crying for Him, but we do not know when and to which extent will He grant our prayers. We feel helpless.

In meditation, however, we don't ask God for any help, gift or divine characteristic; we are simply entering the sea of His reality." (Sri Chinmoj, Meditation, 75)

In entire Bible not a single fact says that faith is based on meditation or any other experiential feeling but on a simple confidence and relying on God.

When apostle Paul describes the secret of his experiences with God he does not say "I felt him very deeply", but "I knew to whom I believed". (2 Timothy 1:12)

The truth of God's character does not depend on what we think or feel. If someone is worth of our trust, what our feelings have to do with it?! Right the unpleasant feelings will be a test of our real trust in God.

Maybe we feel that God is up and we are down; maybe we feel the abyss between His and our face, maybe we do not know when and how He is going to fulfill our prayers but all this does not matter because we know in Whom we believe.

"His work is honourable and glorious: and his righteousness endureth for ever. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." (Psalm 111:3. Deuteronomy 32:4)

We know that we believe in One who, from His throne from Heaven, hears our weak voice from the Earth down. We know that we believe in One who has bridged the abyss between God's and our being by His pierced hands. We know that we believe in One who is going to grant our prayers in the way and time best for us.

We believe in God's promises, not because the very techniques of faith is salutary, but because they reveal the character of God's love. Our faith in God's promises shows that we trust and accept that God is love and will therefore fulfill His promises. Thus, salutary is only a faith which in God's promises recognizes God's love toward sinner.

Faith which is not satisfied with simple God's promises reveals a doubt in God as being love. Disbelief in God's promises means a disbelief also in the character of God who has given them.

If we know God, we will be satisfied with a simple faith, no matter what our feelings are. One inspired writer says: "Do not wait to feel that you are made whole, but say, "I believe it; it is so, not because I feel it, but because God has promised." (EGW SC51)

Human need for adequate feelings as a sign and proof of God's acceptance and guidance is present in a subtle form among many people who believe to be Christians. They pray: "God, let me feel love toward all people in the world!" They are waiting to feel love and judge their own spiritual state according to that. (Love feeling we can have without God as well!) They do not trust God because they lack confidence in God as granting their prayers, do not know and do not accept His character, and therefore they rely on them themselves (their feelings). But, the Bible's concept of faith is not based on feelings but on a real relationship with God.

When we pray we do not wait to experience a transformation of our sinful heart. We do not think about ourselves and are not looking at our feelings for a proof of granting of our prayers. We are praying, looking at Christ, until we establish a perfect trust that God has taken over on himself to solve our problem.

If we need to substantiate faith by feelings, it is a sign of its insipidity.

A faith in God which looks for a permanent confirmation in feelings is not a real, but imagined faith in God. That reveals that we do not know God. It shows that we want a blessing without an encounter with the Giver of blessings, with God. This "faith" looses its power in a moment of temptation, whilst a faith based on personal relationship with God, while tempted, strengthens its foundations even more. Let us see what the faith is in the Bible's example of Jesus meeting with a Canaanite woman:

"Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, 'Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.' But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, 'Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.' He answered, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' But she came and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, help me.' He answered, 'It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.' She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly." (Matthew 15:22-28)

Had the Canaanite woman relied on her feelings or her experience, she would have lost her faith immediately. But a real faith is not a consequence of a chance, but of our willing decision to believe in the character of God's love for us. Instead of relying on her experience, on what she saw and felt, the Canaanite woman deceived her own character. She decided to rely on Jesus' character, and not to abandon Him until she received what she had asked for.

Tempting of faith by delaying of granting her prayer helped her to ask more from Jesus and to rely on Him more completely.

Differently from the feeling of doubt suspect which helped to establish the faith in Jesus, the feeling of safety provoked by meditation or any other prop would help to suppress her real need for the Saviour. She relied on Him in spite of her feelings and therefore she won. That is the experience of all faith winners in the Bible.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

God encourages man with great promises and then leads him to a seemingly insoluble resolved situation. Man is confused, for a moment, because when he is looking at himself, he really does not see an exit. (Matthew 19:26). However, "man's trouble gives an opportunity to God". Man lifts his look to God. The time of temptation helps him to check his spiritual state and become aware of the need for cleaning his own motives. He understands how his faith is worthless and how much he needs God. In the prayer he is fighting with God, with all power of his being. (Luke 11:11-13; 18:1-8) He is building a confidence in Him and relies upon Jesus' merits because only inside them, by no means in himself, sees he something which makes him worthy of God's promise and blessing. With whole his being relies he on God and so he becomes a winner of faith.

"Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken. So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Romans 4:18-25)

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Through faith Sara herself also received strength to conceive seed and delivered a child when she was past the age because she judged Him who had promised to be faithful. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. All these died in faith not having received the promises, but having seen them far off and were persuaded by them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country and truly, if they had been mindful of that country they came from, they might have had the opportunity to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones. ... By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." (Hebrews 11:8-34)

"Faith grows strong by coming in conflict with doubts and opposing influences. The experience gained in these trials is of more value than the most costly jewels." (EGW T3 555)

While we are always looking at Christ we will keep the feeling of weakness of our soul, but this feeling will not bother us. We know in Whom we believe. Our faith in Jesus exceeds the importance of the feeling of our weakness. It does not matter how we feel but who God is in reality.

Man can be disappointed only in someone in whom he relies on. Because we do not rely on ourselves, we will not be disappointed with ourselves and our weakness. Our weakness will lead us to lift our look up, to be encouraged by God, His goodness and His power. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.' So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

We do not rely on ourselves, but on living God. Only from such a faith, based on the One we know, a victorious Christian life could originate.

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:31-39)

"And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Matthew 17:20)