Have
you ever been to the place in your relationship with God where you feel
hopeless, you lack confidence, cannot realize the power of heaven at work on
your behalf? Day after day your prayers seem that they never go past your lips,
the doorway to your mouth, your tongue moves but the hand of God seems to be
paralyzed to your relentless flow of words, and it makes you exhausted. If you
have ever experienced this, and even more the recent, then you surely do not
stand in a corner by yourself; most of us have felt this emptiness at one time
or another. Some feel this way because they have never been taught or learned
how to pray. Then there are those of us who have been taught and learned how to
pray but sometimes get so weary that exhaustion creeps in like a lion sneaking
up on his unsuspecting prey, all because we do not continually practice what we
have learned on a daily basis.
The
bible makes it clear that when we pray we must approach God having complete
confidence in him, and if we pray according to his will, he will hear us from
heaven (1Jn.5:14). Many believers know this, they have heard this from their
teachers, but unfortunately this is all they have heard. Some teachers only
teach half the lesson, leaving many with a lack of confidence because of
confusion, because they are left with incomplete knowledge. The Apostle John
did not confuse the body of believers with a lack of knowledge, but it is many
of the purveyors of scripture who do.
The
bible teaches us to pray according to the will of God; nobody will argue with
that. The Spirit says to pray according to the will of God, in the scripture
reference in the previous paragraph above, but what is the will of God when it
comes to prayer. Some teachers leave their students with the idea that the
believer has to hear a voice in their inner man, and that voice will lay out detailed
instructions leading the hearer on a certain pathway that the believer must then
pray about and also follow; they say that this is the method in knowing the
will of God for your life, and they contend praying this way will cause God to
hear you and his will for your life will then come to fulfillment—If the
believer waits eventually the will of God that he or she has prayed for will happen.
Again, nobody will argue with this supposition, even though many believers have
never experienced this type of revelatory images within their spirit. I am not
saying that this method of revelation cannot happen, but it just does not
happen to every believer, even the most ardent of believers. Then the conundrum
occurs, because even the most impassioned believer does not receive specific
instruction from within, laid out step by step, on what to pray for their own lives,
let alone praying for what will be beneficial for other people in the near and
long term of their lives.
This
problem exists because some do not understand the meaning of how to pray
according to the will of God, and this should not be so confusing; some just
make it confusing. What is the will of God anyway, is it not the word of God?
Has God not spoken to us through his son, Jesus Christ? Before Christ became
manifest in the flesh of men the Father spoke to us, primarily Israel, through
the prophets of Israel, but now, in these last days, he speaks to us through
his son; the Spirit of his son by what has been recorded in the holy scriptures
(Heb.1:1-2). Jesus Christ taught us how to pray by the very words he spoke, and
his servants recorded, he taught us how to pray according to the will of his
Father.
How
then does the believer pray according to the will of God so that he will hear
us? Praying according to the will of God requires that the believer prays with a
spirit of faith, believing that whatever we pray for he will grant it to us.
John writes that if we pray according to Gods will, which means praying
according to the law that he has laid out for prayer, the law of faith, then we
must pray according to the method that Jesus taught us on how to pray, it is then
we can have confidence that he will hear us: “and if we know that he hears us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of
him” (1Jn.5:15*).
To
use a frequent phrase, used by certain people in political circles in recent
times, to get the attention of their hearers, “let me be clear!” Praying
according to the will of God is praying the method that Jesus taught to his
disciples, and what is recorded in the scriptures for us to practice. The
method that Jesus taught so that we pray according to his Fathers will is to
pray believing that we will receive whatever we ask for in prayer (Matt.21:22).
Does this mean we can pray for anything that we desire, even if it is evil, concupiscent,
and avaricious? Do I have do answer this for you? If what we desire is in
direct conflict with what God has written then we should not desire it. If anyone
desires to cozy up with the world then he will only make himself Gods enemy; do
not be at enmity with him (Jms.4:4). On the other hand, if the requests we make
before God do not directly conflict with his nature then we will receive
whatever we ask for, if we are emphatic
that we believe that we receive it, doubt cannot be an issue (Mk.11:24).
Is
there some question in your mind that it is his desire to give you whatever you
ask for? Quantitatively it is; he is the one who said: “Ask, and it shall be
given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you. For
every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks
it shall be opened” (Matt.7:7-8*). Christ promises that if we partner up with
someone and we have the same heart in a specific matter we can then ask for
anything and God will do it for us (Matt.18:19). We do not have to beg, or cry,
or stomp our feet, but only believe that we receive what we ask for, believe
that he will do for us the very thing we have requested. This is how the law of
faith works (Rom.3:27), whatever God says, whatever he promises, he will work
to make sure what he says is done (Num.23:19; Ezk.12:25), our part is to make
absolutely sure that we believe that we receive, whatever it is that we ask him
for, and let there not be even one drop of doubt in your heart (Mk.11:23-24).
* Darby’s Translation 1890
Public Domain
No comments:
Post a Comment