Three Ingredients of the Cry of Faith

The Three Ingredients of the Cry of Faith is a rule for understanding how persistent prayer is meant to move from distress to determined trust. Its decisive distinction is between the volume of a person's anguish and the spiritual quality of the response: God may hear cries of oppression, but the book says He is moved by a cry marked by faith, conviction, and refusal to go away empty. The rule therefore joins belief with endurance and presents prayer as an active relationship rather than a single desperate appeal.

From Distress to Determination

The rule begins by acknowledging that people may cry out when they feel alone, cheated, oppressed, or trapped in circumstances they cannot change. The book invokes the cries of exploited field workers whose withheld wages reach the ears of the Lord of Heaven's Armies, establishing that God hears suffering. Yet hearing is not treated as identical with being moved to alter the situation. Yelling, screaming, and crying may release emotion, but the decisive sound is not desperation by itself; it is a cry of faith and determination.

This distinction gives the rule its central force. A person is not instructed to suppress pain, but to fill the cry with a refusal to leave God without receiving an answer consistent with His promises. The expected posture is not passive waiting or embarrassed withdrawal. It is a persistent appeal that continues until the petitioner sees God's promises come to pass. In this way, the rule converts a crisis of circumstances into a test of continued relationship with God.

The Three Ingredients

The first ingredient is faith. The book states that without faith it is impossible to please God and explains faith as believing that God will do what He has said. Faith is therefore more than optimism or a passing feeling of confidence; it is trust in the reliability of God's word. The petitioner approaches prayer expecting divine faithfulness rather than treating the request as an uncertain experiment.

The second ingredient is belief that God is. This means accepting what the Bible says about Him and approaching Him as a real, active, and trustworthy being. The cry of faith is consequently grounded in a defined understanding of God's character, not merely in the intensity of the petitioner's need. Belief supplies the relationship in which persistence makes sense: the petitioner continues because God is present and can respond.

The third ingredient is confidence that God rewards those who diligently seek Him. Diligent seeking gives persistence its practical shape. The petitioner trusts that refusal to quit is not wasted effort and that God responds to those who continue pressing toward Him. The book specifically connects this expectation with the decision not to leave God alone, making endurance both an expression of trust and the behavior through which trust is demonstrated.

Persistence Against Failure and Delay

The rule is directed especially toward people who have failed in prayer and now avoid prayer because they feel ashamed, believe God is angry, or fear repeating the failure. The book treats this retreat as another form of leaving God alone. The contrasting instruction is to run toward God even after failure, seek forgiveness, and continue cultivating fellowship rather than hiding from His presence. The example of Adam and Eve is used to show how sin can produce concealment, while the desired response is renewed approach.

The same principle appears in the teaching about importunity. Jesus' instruction in Luke 11 is explained through terms such as shameless, bold, determined, pressing, entreating, and persistent. The related command to pray and not faint in Luke 18:1 presents refusal to give up as a deliberate attitude. Persistence is not limited to a fixed moment of inspiration; it is the continued pressing of a request despite delay or an apparent unwillingness to be troubled. The anticipated blessing becomes a reason to remain engaged rather than a justification for stopping.

The book also extends the rule into deliverance. Refusing to leave God alone is listed alongside using the Word of God and the name of Jesus, believing that the Lord wants freedom, standing one's ground, refusing to give up on deliverance, and remaining in church with an anointed pastor who can help. The rule is thus not an isolated formula for asking; it is part of a broader discipline for confronting spiritual strongholds and continuing until freedom is experienced.

Biblical and Practical Models

Moses provides the clearest model of the rule's claimed effect. When God requested to be left alone in the crisis involving the Israelites, Moses refused to withdraw. He appealed to God's agreement with the people and argued that the Egyptians would interpret their destruction as evidence of divine mischief. The book presents Moses as insisting that God remember His covenant rather than allowing divine anger to end the matter. The result, as the text cites from Exodus 32:14, was that God changed His mind about the harm He had said He would do to His people. Moses is therefore presented as evidence that one person’s persistent intercession can interrupt a destructive plan and save a nation.

Elijah is used to remove distance between biblical examples and ordinary believers. The book calls Elijah a man just like other people and points to his earnest prayer that stopped rain for three and a half years. His humanity makes the example transferable: persistent prayer is not reserved for an untouchable class of spiritual heroes. The same pattern is associated with Jacob, who would not leave God until he was blessed; Hezekiah, who prayed with his face to the wall and received fifteen additional years of life; the church of Acts, whose prayers accompanied miracles under persecution; the Syrophoenician woman, who continued seeking healing for her daughter despite an apparent insult from Jesus; and blind Bartimaeus, who kept calling to Jesus while others tried to silence him.

The book also turns the rule into a posture toward obstacles. David's confrontation with Goliath is interpreted as a holy attitude of victory, in which intimidation is rejected before the obstacle is removed. The angel's declaration to Zechariah, “Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain,” becomes a model of confident speech toward an apparently immovable barrier. The accompanying command, “Grace, grace unto it,” presents God's favor as available for the mountain. Faith-filled speech therefore works with persistence: the petitioner continues seeking God while addressing the obstacle with confidence that it will be flattened.

Relationship, Freedom, and Response

The rule ultimately rests on intimacy rather than mechanical technique. The book says that God desires fellowship with people and repeatedly urges readers not to withdraw from Him when prayer becomes difficult. It presents prayer as a daily relationship in which individuals seek God's presence, include His involvement in every part of life, and continue returning to Him after failure. Freedom and blessing are located in this refusal to abandon the relationship.

The rule is also framed as a direct invitation to action. Readers are encouraged to initiate contact with God's power, believe that their issues can stop, and expect their lives to change so that they can later help others with their issues. The promised result is not merely private relief: the person who receives God's virtue may become a source of healing and ministry to others. The book's closing invitation asks new believers to dedicate their lives to pursuing God, repent of wrongdoing, receive Jesus Christ, seek the Holy Spirit, and continue until they are blessed. In that final movement, the Three Ingredients of the Cry of Faith become a public confession and a lifelong practice: believe God, recognize who He is, and keep seeking Him without accepting refusal as the end.