Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Five)

Part Five - If you need, ask!
 

This is the fifth article in a series thinking through Bible passages that appear to promise that God will give us anything and everything that we ask for in prayer. It started, while I was having treatment for cancer, with tripping over a bold statement in my daily reading: "The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up." (James 5:15) As I studied more broadly in the Bible, I discovered almost twenty similarly bold statements in the New Testament relating to what can be achieved through faith and prayer. So this series of articles is really just sharing what I found when I studied each of these passages. Fittingly, I think, James 5:15 will be the last passage I will talk about in the series! I learnt a lot on the route back to that passage, and I hope I manage to get that over to you in a way that will spur us all on to greater faith and bolder prayer.

Today I will try to share what I found when I had a look at James 1:5-8. It reads:

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

I think one of the most helpful things to get straight first with the book of James is the purpose of the letter. There are some very bold statements in the letter, somewhat startling in many cases, and they make a lot more sense when you understand what James was trying to achieve overall.

And you don't have to look very far. Whereas some writers will work gently and diplomatically up to a point, James comes straight in with it at the beginning with characteristically blunt style: "To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:1b-4) He was writing to Christians who were suffering for their faith, they had been scattered throughout the nations. How should they face their suffering, their "trials of many kinds"? With "pure joy"! PURE JOY!!!! Yeah right! Why? Because there was a good purpose in their suffering - so that through the testing of their faith they may persevere, and through perseverance become "mature and complete, not lacking anything". 

So the letter is really about how we should respond to suffering if we are to become "mature and complete, not lacking anything." How are we to respond? To sum up in a sentence: We are to respond to suffering with faith, working itself out in obedience, love, humility and prayer. When we look at what read in James with that context in mind, it makes a lot more sense.

So, what's the first thing we might lack if we are aiming to become "mature and complete, not lacking anything"? We probably wouldn't know what to do. So James says straight away, "If any of you lacks wisdom…" (1:5) If any of us lacks wisdom and we don't know how to respond in the face of suffering, so that we might move to greater maturity in Christ, what have we to do?

Ask God! The call to prayer begins and ends James' letter (see 5:13) and crops up in the middle as well (4:2). There are many bad responses to suffering, dealt with later on by James: bitterness (1:13), anger (1:19), sucking up to rich people (2:1ff), cursing people (3:9), envy (3:16), fighting and quarrelling (4:1), slander (4:11), pride (4:13-16), greed (5:5). What should the first response to suffering be? Talk to the Lord about it! Pray!

This is so simple, but how often do we forget? I neglect prayer much too often. I often feel like I don't know what to do in difficult situations. Why don't I just pray? In the words of Joseph Scriven's hymn (1855):

What a friend we have in Jesus,

all our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

everything to God in prayer!

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear,

all because we do not carry

everything to God in prayer.

Here I learnt again what I mentioned in Part Three of this series, that the emphasis is on the asking, not on the receiving. 

But why should we ask God for wisdom, or for anything else for that matter?

Ask God, because He gives generously and graciously to all who ask. And because He is gracious (He does not hold back good things because of our sinfulness, if we have faith in Christ) and generous (he "is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Eph 3:20)), if we ask for wisdom it will be given to us. This is akin to the encouragement we found in Matthew 7 (see Part Three of this series), where we saw that God is our loving heavenly Father, and therefore will give good things to His children (us) when we ask.

So again I found that this passage does not promise to give us everything we ask God for simply because we ask. But it does encourage us to pray, and assure us that God is both generous and gracious. It also tells us that if we ask for wisdom, and whatever we need to deal with suffering to persevere and become "mature and complete" in our relationship with Him, and in His service, then He will surely give us what we need.

But there is one last thing to draw out of this passage.

Those without faith will not receive anything. "When he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord." (James 1:8)

As we saw last time, even a mustard seed faith, a faltering faith that says, "help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24), is a faith that God can bless with miracles. So the doubt that James speaks of is not the "faithful doubt" that I have spoken about in other articles (the lack of understanding or the confusion that is more than counterbalanced, if not underpinned, by clinging to absolutely certain promises). This is what James calls being "double-minded", kind of hypocritical, claiming to be a Christian and yet never letting go of self-reliance. Since this double-minded, doubting person is not approaching prayer from the standpoint of faithful reliance on God, he cannot expect to receive anything from God.

So the challenge to us is do we really believe? Have we ditched our self-reliance and acknowledged that we are dependent on God for everything? Have we asked Jesus to be our Saviour, so that our relationship with God may be redeemed? Do we come to God as our heavenly Father, the one who is able and willing to give us wonderful things in Christ?

Regarding this faith, I like what George Stulac says in his commentary on James (IVP New Testament Commentary on James, IVP, 1993):

There are certain distortions of this teaching common today which should be recognised. The first distortion occurs within what is popularly known as the "name it and claim it" philosophy, when Christians are taught that they should name whatever they need in faith and so claim it as given to them. The dangers are the misplacing of faith and the raising of unbiblical expectations. Christians are sometimes led, in effect, to place their faith in the force of their own believing, and then to expect freedom from hardship or deprivation. What James is prescribing is something different: faith in the grace of God, which enables faith to be exercised even within hardship and deprivation.

A further distortion of the biblical teaching occurs when Christians treat James's warning against doubt (and the similar teaching by Jesus in Mt 21:21) superficially, taking it to require a wilful suppression of mental doubts. This can become an unrecognised attempt to manipulate God by one's own power of positive thinking. The error has left many in bondage to fear, afraid of their own thoughts and afraid of the God who might hold their doubts against them and therefore not grant the wisdom needed. The result is a crippling of people's faith and a perversion of the very truth James is teaching: that God gives freely, without finding fault.

So pray, pray with faith in our generous, loving, gracious, Father. Ask for wisdom. Ask for whatever you need to become mature and complete in Christ, as you seek His kingdom and His righteousness. And He will give us "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine."

Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Four)

Part Four - You Gotta Have Faith
 

We're continuing here our study in Bible passages related to prayer, specifically those that appear to suggest that we automatically get what we ask for.

I thought the next passage we should look into should be Mark 9:14-32, which is paralleled in Matthew 17:14-23. I am not going to reproduce the whole of these passages, so I recommend that you get your Bible out and read through them, so that you can relate to what I say.

Jesus has just been amazingly transfigured in the presence of Peter, James and John. They had heard the voice of God coming from out of a bright cloud surrounding them, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him." (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7).

The remaining nine disciples had been left in the town, continuing the mission they had been given (Matthew 10:1; Mark 6:12-13). When Jesus, Peter, James and John met up with them, they found them in dispute with a crowd. The dispute had arisen because a man had brought his demon-possessed son to them for healing, but they had been unable to do so. Jesus heals the boy, but the disciples want to know why they had not been able to heal him.

Jesus' reply, in Matthew 17:20 is, "Because you have so little faith." Mark, on the other hand, records Jesus saying, "This kind can come out only by prayer." (Mark 9:29). These accounts do not conflict, however, when you consider that faith and prayer are so intimately linked. As William Hendriksen says, "Of course, these two go together. Where there is little faith, there is little prayer." (New Testament Commentary on Mark, p352)

Some demons evidently are more powerful and malignant than others, and therefore some are easier to drive out than others. Jesus had given the disciples authority to drive out demons, but He never said that it would be easy in every case. As human beings, they (and we) cannot tell how powerfully someone is enslaved by demonic power, spiritual darkness or sin. We cannot look into a person's heart. All we can do is read the external signs. Therefore, Jesus chides the disciples for giving up so easily. If they had had faith, believing the promise implicit in the mission Jesus had given them, then they would have persevered in prayer.

Hence the real lesson of the passage is about persevering in prayer. But there are two other points relevant to our study. Why should we persevere in prayer? Why should we have faith?

Jesus' statements about faith are puzzling in the context of my question as to whether we can expect God to grant us every request. He says in Mark 9:23, "Everything is possible for him who believes." In Matthew's account he adds, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20)

Do these statements amount to a promise that if we have even a small amount of faith we should be able to do amazing miracles whenever we want, things like moving mountains? Is Jesus promising to grant our requests for anything every time if we have enough faith? Well, no!

For a start, the mention of mustard seeds and mountains should be enough to make us realise that Jesus is talking about extremes to make a point. Mustard seeds are the smallest of all the seeds, and moving mountains is something so cataclysmic that no human being in the history of the world has ever been able to do it. Moving mountains is something that God alone does, with earthquakes and volcanoes and floods. The smallest imaginable faith is shown performing the greatest imaginable miracle.

Secondly, Jesus does not say that everything is promised for him who believes. He says everything is possible. Nothing should be thought of as impossible if we ask the one who created the universe and keeps it in existence.

Thirdly, the scene is set with a crowd, including "teachers of the law", arguing with the nine disciples (Mark 9:14,16). The argument evidently arose from the faithless lawyers and the crowd, bringing the disciples their trickiest case of demonic-possession, and then gleefully rounding on them when they could not drive it out. There was no faith involved in bringing the poor boy to the disciples. It was a test designed to trip them up and disprove Jesus' claims about Himself. Jesus was not unfamiliar with these sneaky tactics, and His first response is significant. He says, "O unbelieving generation." (Mark 9:19; Matt 17:17)

Jesus sets up a contrast between the lack of faith of the crowd and the lawyers, and the faltering faith eventually shown by the father. He draws attention to this in verses 22 to 24 of Mark 9. The boy's father says to Jesus, "if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."

"'If you can'?" replies Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

The man is convicted and realises that he is standing in front of someone who can really do something for his son. He exclaims, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" He sees that he is full of doubts and fears and uncertainties, but underneath he does believe that Jesus is special and is able to heal his son. This is mustard seed faith, and Jesus performs the miracle.

Jesus is very bluntly saying that the problem is never that He lacks power, but normally that we do not believe.

There are three lessons we should learn:

1. Prayer requests are not granted to those who have no faith. Everything is possible for him who believes. We only need a mustard seed of faith. There is no suggestion that we need to try to muster within ourselves a strong, unwavering faith. We simply need to cling to Christ as the one who is able to do "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." (Ephesians 3:20) But nevertheless we need to understand that without faith we are not in touch with the one for whom nothing is impossible. We're told in Matthew 13:58 that there were occasions when Jesus did not do many miracles "because of their lack of faith". And the same principle applies today. Where people reject Jesus and do not put their trust in Him, and do not pray to Him, God is less likely to do amazing things and grant requests.

2. Conversely, if we have faith in God then we must have boldness to pray for big things as well as small. If we do believe, and we pray, then big things, miracles, are possible. Not promised, but possible. The boy who was brought to Jesus was relieved of his demon-possession. All because his father expressed his faith in Jesus and asked for healing.

3. Faithful prayer involves perseverance. There may not be easy or quick answers. But having faith involves carrying on believing and praying until we receive the answer, yes or no.

I should leave it there for now, but next time, God-willing, I'll talk about a similar lesson from James' letter.