“This is the confidence we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15
Prayer doesn’t always mean yes. One of the more interesting stories in the New Testament part of the Bible is when a mother came up to Jesus to ask Him a question. The story goes like this. The mother of James and John went to Jesus and said to Him, “Can I ask you a question?” Jesus gave her permission and she asked what surely was a very inappropriate question. She said, “Can my sons sit on Your right and left when You come into Your Kingdom.” Now this was just wrong and you can imagine that Jesus did not grant her request. In fact He said, “You don’t really know what you are asking.”
I think too often this might well represent how we approach prayer. We somehow think that we have the right to ask God whatever we want and fully expect Him to grant the request. I suppose there are several times that scriptures seem to support that idea but guess what? That simply isn’t the case. You see, in the garden Jesus taught us a very valuable lesson about prayer. When talking with His Father hours before His death, He asked His Father that if it were possible to allow this terrible cup to pass from Him. But then He prayed, “Nevertheless, not My will but Your Will be done.” And that dear friends is the big truth. When we pray we have to be willing to pray in accordance with His will.
Over in the book of 1 John we read John’s take on this. He said, “This is the confidence we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of Him.” There is the key–if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. The Psalmist teaches us the same principle in Psalm 37:4 teaches us, “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires.” Did you see it? When we delight in the Lord, we learn to ask according to His will, and when we do that, He grants us our heart’s desires which are always His desires.
When we learn this, we also begin to experience the true power of prayer. Not every prayer is going to be a yes. In fact, someone said, “Sometimes God says go. Sometimes God says grow. Sometimes God says slow. Sometimes God says no.” You see the great secret of prayer is that it is not about getting–it is about growing in intimacy with our Dearest Daddy. The greatest treasure of prayer is a deeper relationship with our God. Learn that and it will change not just your prayer life but your life for the rest of your life.
So, go ahead. Trust God and pray big prayers and believe that God can do all things…nothing is impossible with Him. But we need to trust Him enough to pray…to say…Thy will be done. If we do, we can have the confidence assurance that “He’s got this.” Bro. Dewayne
Grits with Grace 