Prayer Ought to Be Working!
Have you ever found yourself wondering why your prayer life isn’t working so well? We have tons of promises in the Bible concerning prayer. Here are just a few:
• If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 15:7
• This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. I John 5:14-15
• Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
Stare at those words for a few minutes friends. Are you getting whatever you wish, everything you ask, and the desires of your heart? If not, you need to be asking why! Prayer is supposed to working for us! Please don’t get me wrong. God is not our magic “genie” ready to wave a wand and spoil us. With each of these verses, there is a condition that goes along with it. You must abide in Christ, ask according to His will, and delight yourself in the LORD in order for these promises to become reality in your life.
I compare abiding in Christ to a holy IV put right into our spiritual veins. When you have the Spirit coursing through your veins, you will ask God for things according to His will. You won’t be asking for selfish desires. To get the desires of your heart you must delight in the LORD, which is to have extreme pleasure in Him. Once you get to this point, your desires and God’s desires come into alignment. I long for that intersection of our wills!
Finally, look at the description of these promises: “it will be done”, “confidence which we have before Him”, “He will give”. These are not flimsy promises friends. You can count on your covenant-keeping Jehovah to make good on these promises when we fulfill the conditions that go along with them. Prayer ought to be working for us. Too often, we try to explain away our unanswered prayers by saying, “It must not be God’s will.” In reality, they go unanswered because we have not gotten our will in line with His.
What a great inspirational message that I truly needed to hear! As we have experienced some personal challenges through the past couple of years, it has become more and more clear to me that I have to abide in Him. I have to be faithful to Him. I am finding comfort in James. In particular, I have realized that trials and temptations are two very different things. Trials develop perserverence in our lives as we grow in the Lord. Trials are not sin-initiated. However, temptations are a test of the devil, not a test administered by God. God is not in temptation. Temptation becomes sinful when we act on it, and the result is tribulation. I may not have interpreted the sciptures correctly, but that is what I am working through right now. Trying to find answers to the common questions, “Why am I experiencing this trial?” and “Why hasn’t God answered my prayer”. I am sure the answers are in His Word.