Matthew 21:22 “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
John 14:13–14 “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
John 15:7–8 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
1 John 3:22 ...and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
We are turning our attention this week to a breathtaking promise that Jesus made and often repeated in Scripture concerning the prayers of His people. Put simply, it is this - God will give us whatever we ask for in prayer, provided we ask in the right way. It sounds amazing and it has certainly been widely misunderstood and misinterpreted, so we are going to want to make sure we do neither. What we find as this promise is repeated in the New Testament is that each time there is a condition upon which God says He will do for us whatever we ask. God is not a cosmic and undiscriminating vending machine, giving out whatever anyone asks of Him regardless of whether it would be good for that person or pleasing and glorifying to Him. Nevertheless, He has given us a firm promise to hear us and to answer us if we come in the right way and with the right heart. The verses above lay out the grounds on which we may have confidence that God will keep this promise. To summarize, God will do for us whatever we ask in prayer, provided that:
- We ask according to His will. Obviously, God will not give us things that are evil or that are contrary to His eternal purposes for us to have.
- We ask with believing prayer. If we ask God for something but inwardly doubt He will do it, then it is not a prayer offered in the faith which God supplies. It is the prayer of faith that God will answer.
- We ask in the Name of Jesus. All our requests must come to God through Christ, being consistent with His character and being offered in dependence upon Him as our mediator. If we cannot honestly say that this is true of the prayer we are offering, God is not likely to give us what we are asking for.
- We ask while we are abiding in Christ. If we abide in Christ (are in spiritual union with Him by faith), and His Words abide in us (i.e. they are on our hearts, and we obey them), our prayers will be more likely to be in keeping with God's will and to be answered.
- We ask while we are keeping His commandments and doing what is pleasing in His sight. It is harder to imagine God giving us whatever we ask if our lives are bent on sin and evil and we are not pleasing to Him.
What an encouragement these passages give us! They prompt us to understand that if we live close to God, filled with His Spirit, keeping His Commandments, full of faith in Him and of dependence upon Christ, our prayers will be of such a character that God will answer them all in the affirmative - He will grant us whatever we ask for!
So we have a twofold challenge this week - first, to live godly lives in the Lord Jesus Christ and then to offer prayers in the Spirit and in faith. God has given us this promise. If He gave it once, it would be a certain thing but the fact that it is repeated unambiguously at least 6 times in different places in Scripture surely means that we may depend upon it entirely. Let's live in the light of this promise in the coming week and for the rest of our lives!