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The Secret Bartimaeus Knew Before He Could See

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

A blind man sits on the roadside outside Jericho. He hears a crowd, learns Jesus is passing by, and starts shouting. People tell him to be quiet. He shouts louder. When Jesus finally stops and asks him a simple question, that question becomes one of the clearest pictures of faith in the whole Gospel of Mark.

What Do You Want Me To Do For You

Jesus asks Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46 to 52, what wilt thou that I should do unto thee. It is a strange question to ask a blind man. Isn’t it obvious what he wants? But Jesus places the responsibility on Bartimaeus to name it. He answers plainly, that I might receive my sight. Notice the word he chooses. Not give me sight, but receive my sight. He already claims it as his before it shows up. That is not presumption. That is faith defining its target.

Receiving Is Not The Same As Striving

Scripture is full of people who positioned themselves to receive rather than strain to earn. The man at the gate called Beautiful in Acts 3 stretched out his hand expecting to receive something, and his feet and ankle bones received strength the moment he stopped waiting and started expecting. James 1:5 to 8 warns that a wavering, double minded person is like a wave tossed by the wind. Faith is single minded. It knows what it is asking for and it does not keep changing its mind about whether God is willing to give it.

Define The What And Trust God With The How

You are responsible for naming what you desire and bringing it to God with honesty. You are not responsible for engineering how it happens. Romans 12:1 and 2 calls this being transformed by the renewing of your mind so you can prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Fear, doubt, and indecision are the real obstacles, not God’s willingness.

Bartimaeus did not receive his sight because he understood theology. He received it because he asked clearly and believed simply. That is still available to anyone willing to shout past the crowd.

-Terrence Burton

Speak It Like Jesus Did

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

When Jesus stood outside the tomb of a man who had been dead four days, He did not organize a prayer meeting or ask the crowd to agree with Him in faith. He simply said, Lazarus, come forth. That moment holds a lesson many of us have missed about how prayer actually works.

A Prayer That Sounds Like a Command

James chapter 5 instructs believers to call for the elders when someone is sick, to pray over them and anoint them with oil. But just a few verses later, James points to the prophet Elijah as an example of effective, fervent prayer, and what Elijah actually said was a declaration to a king that it would not rain again until he spoke otherwise. Scripture calls that prayer. Sometimes what we call decreeing is simply a form of praying that speaks with the same confidence Jesus and Elijah modeled.

Confidence Comes From Relationship

Before Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, He first thanked the Father, saying, I knew that thou hearest me always. That confidence did not appear out of nowhere. It was the fruit of a deep, ongoing relationship with the Father. When we know God hears us, our prayers naturally shift from anxious pleading to peaceful, confident declaration.

Healing and Forgiveness Together

James also connects healing with forgiveness, noting that the prayer of faith will save the sick, and if sins have been committed, they will be forgiven. Neither one depends on our perfection. Both flow from the same place: a Father who is willing and able to help those who belong to Him.

The next time you pray for someone who is hurting, consider whether you are only asking, or whether you are also willing to speak with the same settled confidence Jesus did. He is still teaching us today what He taught His first disciples then, one obedient step at a time.

-Terrence Burton

What It Really Takes to Pray with Confidence

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Have you ever wondered why some prayers feel weak and uncertain while others carry a settled, unshakeable confidence? The apostle John gives us a clear answer, and it has less to do with the words we say and everything to do with the condition of our hearts.

Love That Shows Up in Action

John writes in 1 John 3:18, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” Love that only speaks but never acts is not the kind of love God calls us to. Real love shows up. It is patient, it is sacrificial, and it is consistent. When we walk in that kind of love, something shifts in our relationship with God, and it changes how we approach Him in prayer.

A Clear Heart Produces Bold Prayer

According to 1 John 3:20 and 21, when our hearts condemn us, we hesitate before God. Guilt and shame make us approach Him timidly, as though we are not welcome. But when our hearts do not condemn us, Scripture says we have confidence toward God. That confidence is not arrogance. It is the natural result of walking in fellowship with Him, believing on the name of Jesus, and loving one another the way He commanded us in 1 John 3:23.

Praying with Certainty, Not Guesswork

First John 5:14 and 15 tells us that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us, and if we know He hears us, we already have what we asked for. That is not wishful thinking. That is confidence, the kind that carries assurance and expectation instead of doubt. Jesus taught the same principle in Mark 11:24, urging us to believe we receive before we ever see the manifestation.

Prayer was never meant to feel like tossing words into the wind and hoping something lands. It was designed to flow out of relationship, obedience, and love, resulting in a settled trust that God hears us every time we come to Him.

-Terrence Burton

What If Prayer Sounds More Like a Command?

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

Most of us learned to pray by asking. Father, would you please touch this body. Father, would you please heal this heart. There is nothing wrong with asking, but when you study how Jesus prayed for the sick, something shifts. He rarely asked the Father to do something in the moment. He spoke directly to the need standing in front of him.

James Called It Prayer

James chapter five gives believers a clear picture of healing prayer. Is any among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick. That same chapter points to Elijah as the example of effectual, fervent prayer. Yet look closely at what Elijah actually said. He told the king it would not rain again until he said so. That declaration, that decree, is what James calls prayer.

Jesus Spoke to the Need, Not Just the Father

At Lazarus’s tomb, Jesus thanked the Father before anything happened. Father, I thank you that you have heard me, and I know that you always hear me. Then he turned and spoke directly to a dead man. Lazarus, come forth. He was not negotiating with heaven in that moment. He had already settled that with the Father in private. In public, he simply released the word. The same pattern shows up when he told a paralyzed man his sins were forgiven before anyone even asked about forgiveness at all.

Words, Desire, and Belief Have to Agree

None of this works as a formula. It works because desire, belief, and the words we speak are lined up together. If your mouth says one thing while your heart doubts, you have swapped an ingredient, and you will not get the same result. Faith is really another word for faithful, steady and consistent, not wavering back and forth. When we finally believe that God always hears us, we stop begging and start declaring, because we already know he has moved.

Maybe this week is the week you stop only asking and start believing what you already have permission to say.

-Terrence Burton

The Speed of Your Faith: What’s Really Slowing You Down

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Have you ever felt like your prayers were moving through molasses? You believe. You wait. You keep pressing forward. Yet the answer seems to crawl instead of run. Scripture actually gives us a reason for that, and it has less to do with how hard we are praying and more to do with what we are carrying and how clearly we are seeing.

Clarity Creates Speed

In Habakkuk 2:2, God tells the prophet to write the vision, and make it plain, so that the one who reads it can run. Notice the connection. A clear vision produces a runner. A cloudy vision produces someone who creeps along, hesitant and unsure. Think about driving through fog. You slow down not because something is wrong with your car, but because you cannot see. The moment the fog lifts, you naturally speed up. The same is true spiritually. When our vision of what we are believing God for is blurry, we hesitate. When it becomes clear, our pace changes.

Lay Aside the Weight

Hebrews 12:1 tells us to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and to run with patience the race set before us. Notice that weight and sin are named separately. Not everything that slows you down is sinful. Something as ordinary as unresolved worry or an old habit of overthinking can still act like a weight, even though it is not a moral failure. The instruction is the same either way. Set it down so you can move.

Run With Patience

Here is the part that surprises people. Patience in this verse does not mean sitting still. It means running consistently. You are not called to wait around for something to happen to you. You are called to keep moving in faith, undistracted, toward what God has already shown you.

So take an honest look today. Is your vision clear? Is there a weight you have been carrying that has nothing to do with sin, yet still slows your steps? Set it down, sharpen your focus, and run.

-Terrence Burton