ENCOURAGEMENT 

 
As pointed out above, last Sunday I made the point that it is only when truth is acted upon (when the “grass” of God’s word is not only ingested, but digested) that the Lord’s promise becomes true – “My word will not return unto Me void” (Is. 55:11). I believe one key ingredient that we often miss in our private times of Scripture reading, however, is that we fail to approach God’s word in an attitude of sincere prayer. So much of the truth which God has hidden for each of us in His word will become so much more readily apparent when approached with a humble attitude of serious prayer. For that reason, I wanted to highlight this week and next I John 5:14-15.

I John 5:14 says: “Now this is the confidence we have before Him: whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” In commenting upon this verse, Robert J. Morgan, in his book, One Hundred Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart, makes the following insightful comments.

This verse (i.e., I John 5:14) and the next (I John 5:15) offer one of the Bible’s best definitions of prayer. It’s easy to memorize when you notice how the verses unfold and expand. The meaning and marvel of prayer grows deeper and more practical as phrase builds upon phrase. Prayer is ...

  • Coming before Him.
  • Coming before Him with confidence.
  • Coming before Him with confidence and asking.
  • Coming before Him with confidence and asking according to His will.
  • Coming before Him with confidence and asking according to His will, knowing that He hears us.

Writing near the end of the Bible, and at the end of the apostolic age, the apostle John wanted us to know something about the Biblical promises related to prayer. They are all conditioned by God’s will. In his gospel, for example, John quoted Jesus as saying, “You ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it” (John 14:14, NIV). Anything is a huge word, and perhaps some of John’s readers had taken it a bit too literally. So in I John 5:14, he reminds us that the promise of answered prayer is dependent upon the phrase “according to His will”.
 
From the perspective of infinity, our God knows what’s best from beginning to end. He sees the outcomes of every chain reaction in life. He knows how the dominoes fall and how the cookies crumble. His perfect, providential oversight makes no mistakes and always results in the best for His children.
 
Our vantage point is as limited as a person who has fallen into a hole and can only see a circle of sky above him. We don’t always know the landscape, and we can’t see the distant vistas. So, we pray earnestly and ask God for our needs, our wants, our wishes, and our desires. But we always pray with the attitude, “if it be Your will.” In that we can have total confidence.
 
Sometimes when I purchase roses or plants from a nursery catalog, there is a little box on the order form saying, “If we are out of the item you want, may we substitute one of equal or greater value?” I always say “no”, because I don’t think the workers in the warehouse know what’s best for my garden. But with the Lord we should always say, “Yes, Lord! You may substitute. You may grant an alternative answer of equal or greater value. I trust You with substitutions.”

Morgan then ends chapter 17 of his book with the following quote from S.D. Gordon:

The purpose of prayer is to get God’s will done .... The greatest prayer anyone can offer is “Thy will be done.” It will be offered in a thousand different forms, with a thousand details, as needs arise daily. But every true prayer comes under those four words.

Morgan’s account ends there. I hope that this chapter from Morgan’s book encourages you to approach all your prayer times with greater confidence, but especially those times when you are focused on reading His word. In the context of where we are in our study of the gospel of John, we can confidently go to God in prayer before our times of daily Bible reading and ask Him to reveal to us specific character qualities of Jesus that He wants to form in us and ask Him for the grace, the wisdom, and the will to pursue those character qualities in our lives when He shows them to us from His word. We know that such a prayer is clearly within the will of God because He commands us to be more and more conformed to the image of Christ. Such prayers will definitely be answered and the result will be seen in the change in your very own life. How exciting is that? Soli Deo Gloria!
 
Love, 
 
John & Terri
I John 5:14