We can do nothing without at least a little faith. Whether we exhibit that faith when ordering a meal at our favorite restaurant, and expect what we ordered to actually show up at our table, or we walk out to our car, trusting it to get us to work on time, the act of faith is the same. Even before we receive the results, we know the ending will come about in a specific manner.
God’s Word says, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” 1 John 5:14.
Let’s pick out two words in that verse. Confidence and anything. We can turn to Merriam-Webster to help us out.
Confidence: a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something; the quality of being certain.
So, confidence means we have the certainty that something will happen as we expect it to. There can be no room for doubt.
Anything: any thing whatever.
That’s pretty clear. Anything means there are no limits. The first example sentence Webster’s gives goes something like this: We are allowed to do anything we want.
Now back to 1 John 5:14. “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”
And still, we pray with confidence, and we wake the next morning, and our prayers seem to be unanswered. The cancer is still there. The bills continue to pile up. Our child comes home, bullied on the bus once again.
What is missing? No one can fault our passion, for how can we want the cancer to remain, the bills to continue to torment us, or our child to have tears in her eyes? What have we done wrong?
We have to turn once again to 1 John 5:14. We’ve let four words slip quietly by us. Here they are: “according to his will.”
What is the will of God? James 4:3 helps us define it in quantifiable terms. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
To spend it on our passions. What does that mean? Again, with Merriam-Webster’s help, it means to want an answer from God for our own benefit. Literally, to satisfy something we feel strongly about.
Why do we want the cancer healed, for our benefit, or for God’s? Who benefits when our bills are cleared from our slate, us or God? Is it our parenting in question, or our child’s walk with Jesus that the bully offends?
None of these are easy questions, and the answers are even more difficult. The one thing we can trust is that when we ask according to the will of the Father, his answer is already on the way. Our proof is seen in 1 John 3:22. “And whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
We ask...we receive…because we keep his commandments and we do what pleases him. We cannot forget the “because,” or we leave out half the promise.
When we are passionate for Jesus, everything we ask in his name will be done.
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Code: FGO.I.20.14.vp