Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Fifteen)

Conclusion: Learning and submitting

I can remember learning - but I can't remember where - as a teenager, that actions spring from belief. And it's something that resonated so strongly with me that it has stuck in my consciousness since then. Actions spring from belief. What I believe about things will affect what I do and the way I do it. Or put another way, the way I act is evidence for what I really believe, no matter what I say. Actions speak louder than words, as they say. So I should challenge myself in both directions: Examining my beliefs, how do they affect positively the way I live my life? Examining my actions, are they consistent with what I say I believe? Of course, it's more complicated than that, because we don't know ourselves as well as think we do sometimes. And that's where I often get frustrating inconsistencies in my life, and sin. And that's the way this series about prayer came about, and how it has concluded, but in different ways. 

I think that when I came to James 5:15 last year I knew deep down that God would only grant the requests that He wanted to grant, and therefore there is a possibility that some of our prayer requests are not granted. And therefore I was content (was that rest, though, or resignation? There is a difference, and I confess to oscillating). James 5:15 removed my contentment, because I felt the strain of an apparent inconsistency. "The prayer of faith will make the sick person well." Should I be content? Or should I be holding out for healing for all those sick people that I regularly pray for? Different passages in the Bible appeared to say different things.

But I think that the challenge to put my beliefs into action has become more pressing through the study of the passages I identified. And in rounding off this series I just thought it would be helpful to briefly list all those challenges.

• Ask God boldly for what we need;

• Humbly acknowledge God as our heavenly Father, who knows what is best for us and who loves us, and will give us what is best;

• Pray for what will enable us to glorify our heavenly Father by seeking His kingdom before anything else;

• Pray specifically for the Holy Spirit to fill us more and more.

• Prayer requests are not granted to those who have no faith.

• Conversely, if we have faith in God then we must have boldness to pray for big things as well as small.

• Faithful prayer involves perseverance.

• Praying in Jesus' name means having the glory of God at the heart of all we desire.

• Praying in Jesus' name means acknowledging that we are only able to come to God in prayer through Jesus' death and resurrection.

• Praying in Jesus' name means asking for God to work in our lives to enable us to do the work He has given us - namely, bearing fruit in good works and sharing the gospel with other people.

• Be assured that God is ready to help us as we work for His glory and the coming of His kingdom.

• Don't pray for our own pleasure and self-satisfaction. Pray with God-centred motives and for God-centred motives.

• We see more of our prayer requests granted when we know we pray for things that God wants, as revealed in His Word, and as we understand and align our lives with that more deeply.

• Praying according to God's will means knowing the Bible.

• Praying according to God's will means accepting and rejoicing that God has the final decision in the answer to my prayers.

• Praying with the church is an important and special privilege, giving us even deeper access to the presence of Christ.

• Don't shy away from praying for big and amazing things, not least the raising of a dead soul to life to receive salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

• Our faith when we pray should be based on our knowledge of God and His promises in His Word, not on our past experiences of answered prayer.

• Praying with righteousness, repentance and confession, in the community of the church, will result in healing… but the full extent of that healing may have to wait until Jesus' second coming.

• Just keeping praying and don't give up.

And of course, those are just the things we learnt about prayer. I'm sure that we also learned a lot of other things as well, such as the importance of caring for the weak and those in the margins of the church, such as the way God assures us of His work in us, and many other things.

One of the things I pray for is that I may never lose sight of all that I've learnt through these studies. 

It is quite moving for me to realise that when I started studying these passages I was just approaching the end of my course of chemotherapy. As I come to the end of this series of blog articles, just over a year later, I am fully fit and have been back in work for six weeks. The Lord has been very gracious to me. Not only have I been "raised up" from my illness, which is amazing enough on its own. But I have felt the warmth of His love through the church. And I've been given the time to study and benefit from His Word, and to share His Word with other people. 

Apart from to urge us once again to never neglect persevering and faithful prayer, my final point is this: God uses our questions and confusions, weaknesses and doubts, to teach us huge amounts more than we ever expect, if we turn to His Word with faith.

It started, if you remember, with simply reading the Bible. Literally, just reading. How many of us miss out on learning all these big things about God and His infinite love for us simply because we don't simply read the Bible?

And then I allowed myself to ask an honest question. My reading led me to some confusion, and into asking questions. And I turned to God's Word to get the answers to those questions.

And all that learning about prayer, and the other things as well, stemmed from that one simple honest question, "Does God guarantee I will be healed if I pray for healing?" It started with weakness and doubt, and the result was a superabundance of encouragement.

I am certain that the Lord will do the same with your weaknesses and doubts, whatever they are. Read the Bible. Allow yourself to ask questions. And turn to the Bible to find the answers. Act on the answers. And the Lord will provide you with an overflowing amount of learning and encouragement.

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God." (Philippians 1:9-11)

May God bless us and glorify Himself in us.

Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Fourteen)

Pray!

So after studying thirteen or fourteen Bible passages about prayer and faith, what were my thoughts as I turned back to the passage that had set me thinking? That's what I will share with you as I come close to the end of this series. I learnt a lot about prayer and about God, and I hope that you have done too, as I've taken you through the verses that challenged me.

The verse that triggered my thoughts was James 5:14-15, "Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven." Is it as simple as that? Pray, and get better?

Back in Part 5 of this series I said that, when we consider the rather blunt statements James makes throughout his letter, we ought to have in mind the purpose of the letter. Once you get to know him James is not difficult to understand. He's just knock-down blunt! 

He starts his letter, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, 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 may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (1:1-4)

He is straight to the point. The letter is all about the right response to suffering and hardship. It's not scattered, random, thoughts ranging from temptation, to favouritism, to faith and deeds, to grumbling, to prayer, to healing sick people. It is challenging the responses to hardship that come from lack of faith. It is encouraging an uncompromising walk in the wisdom of God, through faith, with love, underpinned by prayer.

So when we come to the fifth chapter, let's spend a little time looking at how he leads into the verse we are looking at. Here's the passage (James 5:7-18) in full so that we can refer to it:

"Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! 

"Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. 

"Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned. 

"Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 

"Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." 

James has been condemning, in the verses immediately before this, the rich believers who are using their wealth as protection against persecution and hardship, rather than helping their poorer brothers. They have "hoarded wealth" (v3) just in case they might need it as they face hard times for the Lord. But they have ignored those who have hardly anything and the people who are starving to death around them.

The godly response to this hardship is not in using wealth, but to, "be patient… until the Lord's coming." (v7) They are not to "grumble against each other" (v9) over who has and who hasn't, or whether they can avoid persecution. In short, they are to have faith, believing and trusting that the Lord is coming again to bring judgment on their oppressors and bring them salvation as He promised.

He gives the example of the Old Testament prophets (vv10-11), who persevered in the face of suffering, never compromising, never failing to proclaim God's Word even if they were tortured, imprisoned or ignored. He gives the example of Job, who refused to speak ill of God, even in sickness, poverty and bereavement. And he assures us that, "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy." (v11)

When he says, in verse 12, "do not swear… Let your 'Yes' be yes, and your 'No", no…", he is warning against trying to bargain with God: "I swear on my life, I'll do xyz if only you will relieve my suffering…" We are to simply do the right thing because it's right, patiently waiting for our vindication at the coming of the Lord. 

Is anyone in trouble? "He should pray." (v13) God is full of compassion and mercy. We don't need to swear and try to bargain with God and twist His arm to do good to us. We should pray, knowing that He intends our hardship for our own good, persevering so that we, "may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (1:4)

Are we happy? Let's not, in complacency, forget the one who provides "every good and perfect gift" (1:17). "Let him sing songs of praise." (5:13) Don't neglect prayer and praise when you are in trouble or when you are happy. Both are from God and are for our good.

Are we sick (vv14ff)? Here we get to what we wanted to understand. Isn't the tendency to complain, to languish in bed feeling sorry for ourselves, to ask why God has done this to me or let this happen to me? "He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord." James bluntly says, in effect, "don't just lie there! Have faith in God and go and gather the church around you and ask for God's help!"

James is not here giving a ritual or an instruction book for divine healing. He is telling us to wake up and get serious with God! Anointing with oil is not a magical remedy. Having the elders come and pray is not giving them wizard-like powers. Those are to picture someone who seriously, truly believes that God is powerful and compassionate. When one of us is sick, we should get on our knees, calling on the name of the Lord in earnest, persevering prayer.

So James says in v15, "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven." Literally, the phrase is, "… will save the sick person." In the context, making the sick person physically cured of his sickness seems, at first sight, to be the primary intention, but James doesn't elaborate. Likewise, the phrase, "if he has sinned, he will be forgiven" does not imply that James makes a link between sin and sickness, as it appears at first. As we shall see, James is pointing at the mercy of God, who forgives our sins freely through faith in Christ and repentance.

So James is expressing the confidence that if we pray in faith, a sick person will definitely be saved - those who trust in Christ to such an extent that they confess their sins, ask for prayer, and are confident of forgiveness through him will receive forgiveness and eternal life. But James does hold before us the possibility that we may also receive physical short-term salvation from our particular illnesses. Whether our salvation is an immediate freedom from sickness, or a complete freedom from sickness and death after the Lord's coming (which James has only been talking about 8 verses earlier), faith manifested in earnest prayer will bring it about. Whether we are raised up from our present sick bed, or raised up from the grave, faith in Christ, manifested in prayer is what gives us access.

I think this is the right way of looking at the verse, since James says at the start of the passage that we are to "be patient… until the Lord's coming." Jesus never promised complete freedom from hardship or sickness before His second coming, even if we pray our socks off. In John 16:33, Jesus assures us that, "In this world you will have trouble." His promise is not to always relieve us of trouble. His promise is, "But take heart! I have overcome the world." In particular, Jesus did not promise His followers freedom from death before He comes again. Those who are not chosen to be alive when He returns will definitely die. And that means that some sicknesses will end in death, and some sicknesses will last until death. The greatest thing that Jesus did for us by taking the punishment for our sins on the cross, and rising from the dead, was to give us victory over death. Death is not to be feared, because it is the gateway into eternal life, when we will all be "mature and complete, not lacking anything" (1:4). As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:56-57, "The sting of death in sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

What James wants from us ultimately, which is what God wants from us, he spells out in v16: "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." We are to be a community, a church, a family that loves and cares for each other, so that we pray for each other. We are to be a family that strives together for righteousness, humbly confessing our sins and our failings, and encouraging each other to trust Jesus for forgiveness, and encouraging each other to look forward to His coming. In a community like that our prayers will be "powerful and effective".

However, lest we shrink from prayer because we know that we are not perfect, he gives the example of Elijah in verses 17 and 18. "Elijah was a man just like us." If you read about Elijah in the book of 1 Kings in the Old Testament, you will find that he showed both great faith and great cowardice. He argued with God and then spoke boldly in His name. He had failings and fears just like we do. And yet when he prayed God brought a drought, and when he prayed again God brought rain. God answered Elijah's prayers in an amazing way.

To quote George Stulac's commentary, "Having emphasised righteousness as a condition for effective praying, James is not wanting Christians to postpone praying while they try to attain some level of perfection or super-spirituality… James is saying: Strive earnestly for the goal of righteousness, but get down immediately to the business of praying." (p186)

And I can't think of a better way to sum up the passage in James 5, and indeed probably the whole of James' letter, than with Stulac again: "In your trials, you don't need the power gained by money or favouritism or selfishness or fighting or swearing; use the power of prayer, for which you need righteousness. Commit yourself to doing what is right without compromise; then you may rely on God in prayer for all your needs." (p185)

I'll write again to summarise the lessons from all these studies, but if there is one thing that has come through time after time it is this: Even though God does not promise to give us everything we ask for without exception, He is our Father, He is compassionate and merciful, He loves His children so much that He purposed that His only Son should die so that we can spend eternity enjoying Him in Whom is the greatest joy, and He wants us to pray. He enjoys giving us things we pray for, if they are according to His will. 

So I want to encourage you, as I have been challenged, if we have learnt nothing else together studying these passages - pray! Pray! Pray! Strive for righteousness, strive to know God's will from His Word, and pray some more! Pray privately. Pray with the church. Pray for healing. Pray for strength. Pray for more righteousness. Pray for small things. Pray for big things. Pray for amazing things. Pray at home. Pray at work. Pray in bed. Pray at mealtimes. "Pray continually!" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) Pray! Pray! Pray!

Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Thirteen)

I've nearly finished sharing with you the fruit of the studies I did in the summer of 2010, looking through some Bible passages that talk about prayer and faith. There are two more passages to go through. Next time I thought it would be good to come full circle and talk about James 5:15, which was the verse that starting me thinking in the first place. After that I may try to sum up the lessons learnt (I'm not sure how many more articles that will take, so I am making no promises now!).

For this time, though, God willing, we ought to look at probably the most difficult verse of all the ones I studied. That is Mark 11:24:

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

It's difficult because it is the only verse that does not appear to have any limitations or conditions, except to believe. So it appears to force the blame for unanswered prayer onto our lack of faith. If we are not receiving what we want then Jesus appears to say that the reason would be because we do not have enough faith. And I think all honest Christians would admit that our lack of faith disappoints us. Are we then to feel guilty that we don't achieve more, or we suffer too much, because we don't have enough faith? I don't think so. There is a challenge, but I will get to that later.

Let's look at the context. Both Mark and Matthew include the events that led to the statement we are considering. Mark 11:12-25 and Matthew 21:18-22. There are one or two differences between the accounts, but it will only be a distraction if we go into them here.

Jesus has come into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, to the acclaim of a great crowd who laid down cloaks and palm branches in front of him as a kind of royal procession (Matthew 21:1-11). He immediately puts himself in conflict with the Jewish establishment, who hated him. His teaching and his parables, from this point on, relentlessly chide them for being self-seeking and self-righteous rather than recognising the coming of God's Messiah, their Saviour.

For the benefit of his disciples, travelling with him, he gives a dramatic illustration:

"The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.' And his disciples heard him say it….

"… In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!'

"'Have faith in God,' Jesus answered. 'I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, "Go, throw yourself into the sea," and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.'" (Mark 11:12-25)

The fig tree was a picture of the Israel of Jesus' day, which was largely fruitless because of its self-righteousness. Jesus was making the point that Israel as a nation was going to be cast aside because of their unbelief. He cursed the fruitless fig tree so that it withered in the same way that Israel would wither because of their unbelief and their rejection of the Messiah.

If you were to ask me what was the most surprising thing about this passage, however, it would not be Jesus' statement about faith and prayer. What is most surprising, in my opinion, is that the disciples were surprised! In Matthew's account we are told that, "they were amazed" (21:20). That's striking to me, because they had been with Jesus for three years and had seen him walk on water, heal the sick, feed thousands of people from a few loaves of bread and a few fish, drive out demons and do many other miracles. Why would they be surprised that he should curse a fig tree and that it withered? Surely they had seen Jesus do things more powerful and dramatic?

Perhaps it was a little bit unexpected. Perhaps they expected that when Jesus said, "May you never bear fruit again!" the fig tree would simply be fruitless and leafy for the rest of its life. Perhaps they did not expect it to dramatically die immediately. Perhaps after so many healing, liberating and creating miracles this destructive miracle startled them. But Jesus makes it clear that he understood their amazement as lack of faith. So his response was to challenge that lack of faith. "Have faith in God!" Jesus says.

Did the disciples not believe that God could move mountains if He wanted to in response to their prayers? Did they not believe that through Jesus Christ they had access to God to ask Him to do amazing things? They should not have been so surprised. But the picture that Mark and Matthew paint of the disciples before Jesus rose from the dead - throughout their gospels - is a picture of slow understanding and timidity. They did not yet clearly see the closeness of the relationship between Jesus and His Father, and the full implications of the access to God's power that went with that. Still less did they understand that Jesus' work enabled them to have that same access, through faith in Him, so that they too could ask for amazing things.

Moving mountains may not be something we would ask God for, and if we did it would only be to test Him. But the point is that God is able and willing to do really amazing things for us in response to genuine prayer that has His kingdom and glory at heart. 

One of the reasons we feel we don't see God working in an amazing way is because we don't ask Him for amazing things. We need to understand that we can ask God for anything, and have faith that He can do anything. Nothing is beyond His power. I think this is a major thing for all of us. We don't have much faith if we're honest. If we did, wouldn't our church prayer meetings be consistently well attended? (I challenge myself in this too!) If we really believed that God is ready, willing and able to answer our really difficult requests, wouldn't we pray and pray and pray?

But am I ducking the issue of the strong words, "whatever… it will be done… it will be yours"? Perhaps. But once I understood that Jesus was trying to respond with something suitably scathing for the disciples lack of faith, I could see a deliberate overstatement. 

It would be an absurd interpretation to take the word "whatever" without any limitation, but because Jesus' point was about the disciples lack of faith he makes his statement without limitations. For instance, we can't ask to be greater than God! We can ask to be preserved from death, but since death has to come to everyone we cannot expect prayer to stave it off forever! We can't ask something sinful to not be sinful just because we enjoy that particular sin. We can't ask for the destruction of people we don't like. We must, therefore, understand the limitations in this passage naturally from elsewhere in the Bible, and we have spent many weeks uncovering those.

And yet that does not lessen the challenge to our faith. Whilst God does not promise to give us anything and everything that we ask for, the fact is that we very often miss out because we do not believe. We may say that we believe, but actions speak louder than words. We talk about the power of God, the sovereignty of God, the love of God for His people, and yet our absence in church prayer meetings, our laxity in setting aside time for private prayer, our small mindedness in prayer, demonstrate that we lack real faith. Without faith we either don't ask God for what we need, or we are too reserved in our prayers. And if we don't ask, how can God answer?

I'll be tentative here, but there may also be a sense in which Jesus is not overstating. He says, "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." (Mark 11:23-24) There is a specific assurance of receiving what we ask when we have no doubt about what we ask for, when we are so sure that we will receive it that it's almost like already having it. But apart from when we pray for things that are specifically promised in Scripture, the only way to have that certainty is if God gives it to us supernaturally. This is unusual. The apostles certainly experienced it, as they did great miracles with great confidence. But after the apostles it is more usual to have to pray, as we have learnt in earlier studies, "nevertheless, not my will but yours be done." I simply leave open the possibility. Whether this is the case of not, we are challenged to have more faith, and pray more boldly.

But what is the remedy for our lack of faith? I've said in Part 5 of this series that we are not to have faith in our own faith, or try to muster positive thoughts, wilfully suppressing mental doubts. We can fall into the trap of trying to manipulate God by our own power of positive thinking. Having more faith is not a matter of taking a big gulp, squeezing your eyes shut and dismissing anything negative that was in your mind.

You build your faith by filling your mind with the Word of God, learning about His love for His people, learning about the mighty works He has done in history, keeping God's promises in the forefront of your mind. And you build your faith by asking the Holy Spirit to increase it in you.

If I look back on my own life and the way the Lord has responded to my prayers, I am now almost ashamed that I was prompted to start this study a year ago. I have recounted on this blog how the Lord has blessed me and my family in the last few years, in the face of various hardships. And that has all been in response to prayer. There have been amazing "coincidences" that simply do not happen without prayer. I think of the way that my health has improved, even though slowly; and the way that certain sick friends have been graciously preserved even after the worst prognosis - all after prayer.

I think that most of us shy away from praying for what we consider to be big things because we are afraid that God will say no, and we will be discouraged. We like to only pray for things that we will definitely receive. But Jesus' challenge to us in Mark 11 is to be bold in prayer, even if God eventually says no. If a mountain needs to be moved - perhaps a metaphor for an illness, or a blockage to our ministry or service - God is able to move it and loves His children enough to do it, if it fits with His plans for His glory and their greater good. We should not allow the extent of our faith and faithfulness in prayer to be based on answered prayer from our past experience. Our faith in God and faithfulness in prayer should be based on the promises of God and the character of God revealed in His Word, the Bible. If our faith is in God, and our love is for His glory, then we will continue to pray even after He has turned down various requests.

However, I am sure that God gives us most things that we ask for, if we ask with believing hearts that truly treasure Jesus Christ and seek His kingdom. Jesus' words in Mark 11/Matthew 21 should be a challenge to us - myself very much included - be encouraged, believe… and pray… pray for big things, small things, amazing things… but above all, pray and don't ever give up praying!

Put in the Fire for the Sake of Prayer - Desiring God

The next part of my own series on prayer is coming up soon. But I happened to hear a sermon by John Piper this week that I thought was great. I commend it to you. You can find it to read, watch or listen to by clicking the link below.

Put in the Fire for the Sake of Prayer - Desiring God

Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Twelve)

Part Twelve - Pray with the Gathered Church

So, where next in our tour? It started with a question from a passage in James, which expanded into studying a number of New Testament passages that make bold statements about prayer and faith. There are three more left to share with you.

This time, God willing, I would like to share my thoughts on Matthew 18:19-20, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

So, God will grant anything we ask if we come to him with a united request with at least one other person? That would seem to include every public prayer that we say "Amen!" to in a prayer meeting, or in church, or with our kids at bedtime. But is Jesus really making such a general and sweeping watertight promise?

We find in this case that the context is critical in understanding the scope of what Jesus is saying in these verses. We need to look at the whole of chapter 18 of Matthew, and see that Jesus is teaching here about the way that we should treat people within the church, and in particular the way that we should be disciplined and guided to follow Christ.

In verses 1 to 4, Jesus is asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He replies by calling a little child among them as an illustration of the kind of humility required in the kingdom. "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (v3) We are to have a humble, learning, attitude, knowing our weakness and our need of help and instruction. We are not to go around using our standing in the church to lord it over others, thinking that we are better or wiser or more holy than others. A patronising, judgmental spirit has no place in the church, and those who display such attitudes will have no place in the kingdom of heaven.

In verses 5 and 6, Jesus pushes further to tell us what our attitude to the humble and weak should be. He says, "whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me." If we welcome among us those who humbly accept their need to change, their need of forgiveness, their need to know Christ more, then we welcome Christ. And if we are humble ourselves likewise as little children, we will see that we, in Christ, are here to help each other. And Jesus condemns those who through their actions cause any believer to sin, including those arrogant people who call themselves Christians but who place burdens on the weak and cause them to fall away.

This context, in fact, gives more weight to the familiar saying in verses 8 and 9, "If you hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." The weight comes from the way Jesus introduces this in verse 7: "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!" It appears to me that when Jesus speaks of hands, feet and eyes that cause sin, he is first of all talking about people. He has been talking about the acceptance of humble people within the church, and he goes on to talk about our treatment of them in verse 10. Hence, I think primarily Jesus is asking us to be careful who we keep within the church. If people cause ordinary, weak and humble, genuine believers to sin, to give up or to fall away, then they should be cut out of the church. People and attitudes, for instance, that turn people away from Christ because they do not feel good enough to get into heaven, are absolutely not to be tolerated. Of course, the individualistic and personal way in which we normally see these verses is not wrong. Jesus is saying that we ought to take all sin seriously and eliminate from our lives as well as our churches those things that cause people, even ourselves, to sin, even if it causes us temporary disadvantage.

In verses 10 to 14, Jesus switches from negative to positive reinforcement of his point. We should not look down on other believers ("these little ones") because they are personally known and cared for by God the Father. In fact he is happier when one of these is brought back and nurtured than about ninety-nine who do no get lost in the first place. "… your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." (v14) If He cares for all of His children, even the meekest, weakest and humblest, then so should we. We should go after them, protect them, care for them, ensure that they are well taught and that they grow in their knowledge of Jesus. We are not to play percentages, as if keeping the majority is the best strategy. No, expending disproportionate time and effort to hold on to the weakest and the most problematic is what we are to do.

Verses 15 to 18 give an example of a disciplinary process, which both builds up the weak and weeds out the proud. In the case where one of our brothers or sisters wrongs us we are to show them their fault. This aims at helping them to grow and change in the way that we all have to. "If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." (v15) Winning him is our aim. If he doesn't listen we should get one or two others to back us up, so that he knows that it is not just a matter of opinion. After that we should take it before the church, by which I think Jesus means the elders of the church, rather than the whole congregation. If the person still does not listen then they have proven themselves to be too proud to listen and change, and therefore they are not showing the humility required of a believer, and they should be put out. "Treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector." (v17) In our day, perhaps we'd say, "treat them as you would an atheist or a drug dealer." In other words, they cannot be part of the church until they show repentance.

The point isn't a one-size-fits-all disciplinary policy. The point is that our first priority should be winning our brother, but also that the church should be kept pure.

Verse 18 is what gives the church, in particular the eldership, the responsibility and authority to make these judgments. "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." When the church makes a judgment in line with God's will, as revealed and correctly understood from His Word, that judgment is binding in heaven as well as on earth. God will back it up.

And that is what gives the immediate context for the verses we are particularly interested in. "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For when two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." (vv19-20) Why does the church have authority and responsibility with regard to discipline? Because Jesus gives them this authority. Because when we gather together as the church He is with us.

But it is not just worldly authority. It is only authoritative and binding in a heavenly sense if it is done "in my name" (v20). We've discussed those three important words before in this series (Parts 6, 7 and 8). In that sense, the church is only authorised to teach, discipline and pray within what God has revealed through His Word. We have authority in the church only because Jesus meets with us in the church. He is present with us as we make these judgments and ask for His blessing in doing His work. In other words, the authority of the church is always under the authority of Jesus, in doing the work of Jesus. And we find Jesus' teaching in the Bible.

Nevertheless, whilst the context shows that this is not an open-ended promise to guarantee anything we want, it is a great comfort to us that we when we come together and submit to Christ and His Word He is there with us, hearing us, supporting us.

So what shall we take away from this study to encourage us in prayer?

First, that Jesus is with us in a special way when we meet together in His name. When we meet with childlike humility, seeking to honour Him, seeking to learn from Him how we can best serve Him in pursuing His kingdom, He is present with us to grant our requests according to His will. He will give us the help that we need. What a great assurance that is.

Second, that we should not neglect the assembly of Christian brothers and sisters, signifying our submission to Him. He has given us the gift of the church, brought us into it, for our good, for our growth in knowledge and holiness, for the pursuit of His kingdom. Within the church we are built up and edified. Within the church we are corrected and nurtured. Within the church we meet with Christ.

We can and should pray privately, following the example of the likes of David, Daniel, Moses, Paul and the apostles and prophets. But we should all the more pray with the gathered church as we seek to support each other humbly in doing God's will and preaching the good news of His kingdom.

To finish with a quote from John Calvin (emphasis is mine):

"There is therefore no reason to doubt that those who give themselves up to his direction will derive most desirable advantage from his presence. And since it is an invaluable blessing to have Christ for our director in all our affairs, to bless our deliberations and their results; and since, on the other hand, nothing can be more miserable than to be deprived of his grace, this promise ought to add no small excitement to us to unite with each other in piety and holiness. For whoever either disregards the holy assemblies, or separates himself from brethren, and takes little interest in the cultivation of unity, by this alone makes it evident that he sets no value on the presence of Christ." (Commentary on Matthew, Mark and Luke, Vol. 2.)

Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Eleven)

Part Eleven - Not as I will, but as you will...

I guess I ran out of space in Part Ten! We were considering two statements in John's first letter to first century Christians. 

Last time we had a thorough look at one particular statement in 1 John 3:21-22, "if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." We saw that the wider passage is all about our assurance, which God gives both through His Spirit within us and the obedience He works within us. As we obey His commands more, the more confidently we know that He is in us, and the more confidence we have before Him. And as we grow in that obedience, our priorities are changing to be more in line with His, and therefore we find ourselves asking for more of the things that God knows are best for us and therefore He is willing to give us.

As David Jackman says (The Message of John's Letters, The Bible Speaks Today, IVP, p106), "Understood in this way, [this verse] becomes not so much an impossible challenge as an encouragement. As we seek to live in a way that pleases God, practising truth and love, our desires become moulded to his. We want his will in our lives and the lives of others, rather than pursuing our own selfish desires willy-nilly. The more we enjoy and develop that relationship, as obedient children, the more we shall find ourselves asking and receiving those things that are pleasing to God."

So we saw that when John says, "we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him" (1 John 3:21-22), he does not mean that God sees our obedience and repays us with good things that we ask for. Rather, our confidence before God grows as He shows us that He is working in us through enabling greater obedience to His commands (to believe in Jesus and to love one another), and in that confidence we ask and receive.

And yet we must be honest and say that John's other implication is that if we are not obedient, and do not love one another, then we will lack that confidence and will not receive. David Jackman says, "How can we receive God's good gifts in answer to prayer, if we do not ask in accordance with his will? And how can we ask like that, unless we are obeying God's will already revealed in Scripture?" (The Message of John's Letters, p106). 

And that leads us nicely on to the second statement in 1 John that I looked at in my study - 1 John 5:14-15, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him."

"According to his will" is a very important limitation on the requests that we can expect to be granted by God. What it means is that God decides what is best for us. If we ask for something that is in keeping with what God has decided is best for us, then He will grant our requests. He loves to act in response to our requests, but what He says is decisive in the end. And that is what we would expect of a loving Father, as I said last time. 

Does "his will" here mean his commands, or his intentions as revealed in Scripture, or does it means His secret will, i.e. the specific purposes for things that happen in our lives that He does not normally reveal to us? Fundamentally, of course, "the will of God" simply means "what God wants to happen". But what that is depends on the context.

For example, in 1 John 2:17, John says, "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives for ever." In other words, the person who does what God wants lives forever. But how does a person know what God wants? The answer is from Scripture, where God tells us what is required of us. (See also John 7:17 and 9:31.)

On the other hand, when Jesus says, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me" (John 4:34); or, "I have come down form heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38), the context determines that we understand the will of God (since it was God who sent him) slightly differently. Why? Because in John 6:39-40 Jesus goes on to say, "this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day… my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life…." So the will of God in this case was the mission that was given to Jesus - to take for Himself a people, and to die in their place, so that they may be raised from the dead at the last day, and have eternal life.

So what does the context determine in 1 John 5:14?

I don't think that it would make sense for it to simply mean his commands. When we are commanded to "do His will", that means that we are to do things that He commands and in a way that He reveals. In the context of prayer, that would then mean that if we prayed according to the right formula then God would respond. But that conflicts with the teaching about prayer in the rest of the Bible (e.g. "do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:7-8)). It also does not fit with the variety of different types of prayer that are contained in the Bible.

I think it makes more sense to take "his will" as meaning the purposes of God for the world. That fits better with the Bible's teaching, page after page, about the Sovereignty of God. God's purposes always come to pass. No-one can thwart them and no-one can twist His arm to do something He doesn't want to do. Then we would interpret this verse as meaning that if we ask God anything that is in keeping with His purposes for the world, then He will hear and grant our requests.

And how do we know the purposes of God for the world? Well, there are two answers to that. The answer at a high level is that we are given insight into God's purposes in His Word, the Bible. The answer at a more detailed and specific level is that we don't know. Only God knows what His plan is for every little thing that happens in the world. But we can be sure that He has a plan.

So it boils down to two lessons: 

1. Praying according to God's will means knowing the Bible. We can be sure that if we get greater understanding of God's purposes in and for the world, through reading, studying and being given understanding of His Word, then we will know better what we ought to pray for. We will have a better idea what will fit with His plans, and we will pray for that, because we love Him and know that His plans and purposes are good (Romans 8:28). And as we grow in our understanding we will pray more "according to his will" and have more of our requests granted. Of course, we can never know the particular mind of God in a specific sense, so when we pray for specific things we will be led to pray, like Jesus, saying, "if it be possible… nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39)

2. God grants the requests that He wants to grant. If we ask for something and it fits with what He wants then He will give it to us. It cannot be any other way when we come to the God who created the universe and controls every atom and every transfer of energy, and who has a purpose in everything that happens in the world. He is not sitting back watching what happens. He is pushing it along and keeping it going, displaying His glory, His grace and His wisdom all the time. His will is ultimate, and our wills are subordinate. So there may be some things that appear to us, with our finite and fallen minds, to be in line with God's revealed will. But because He knows everything, He knows whether specific requests are good for us and for His strategy in the world. But also conversely we should be confident that part of God's purpose is to involve us, to grant requests in working our His purposes.

Quoting David Jackman again (The Message of John's Letters, p161): "For prayer is not an attempt to get God to see things my way and to extract from him what I have decided I need or want. Prayer is submitting my will to his… It is opening the door of my need to the Lord Jesus. And this means that prayer is God's means by which my submission to the Christ's lordship can be developed. The less I pray, the more self-willed I become. But the corollary is wonderfully true. 'Not my will, but yours' - that is the essence of assured prayer, the secret of prevailing prayer. What confidence we can have! This should be a great stimulus in our personal lives to find out God's will, to build on the commands and promises of his Word in our prayers, to talk every situation through with him, and to submit all our thinking, planning and deciding to God. Answers to prayer do not depend on a right diagnosis or analysis of the problem by us as we pray, but on a childlike submission to the Father, knowing that he will give us what is best according to his will. If he were to answer on any other basis, which of us would ever dare to pray again? We do not have that sort of wisdom."

Prayer - Ask for Anything? (Part Ten)

Part Ten - Having Confidence Before God

Back in parts six, seven and eight of this series we looked at some passages in John's gospel where Jesus appears to promise that we can ask for literally anything we want and that He will always grant our requests. Now we come to the part in the series where we look at John's letter to Christians in the early church. And it ought to be no surprise when we find that the statements we find in John's letter are very similar to the ones he records Jesus saying in his gospel.

This time I want to have a look at the following verses:

"Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." (1 John 3:21-22)

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him." (1 John 5:14-15)

I think I said earlier that I have found John's writings very difficult to understand. You really have to wrestle with them. John does not write in a standard way. He says nothing without a lot of theological packaging. Whereas Luke, Matthew and Mark wrote gospels that are mainly historical narrative, John wrote a gospel that is a theological treatise. Whereas Paul may have written letters containing fairly linear arguments (where each point is based on the truth established immediately before), John seems to have written in circles and patterns - almost poetry. His arguments tend to be couched in symbolic language about light and darkness, anointing, purification, truth and lies, seeing and blindness, and so on. And I don't think this style is necessarily just a literary device being deliberately used. In my opinion (for what it's worth) I think John's mind worked like that. God gave him a gift of seeing things differently and presenting truth in rich, vivid, complex language, in ways that would engage our minds to meditate on God's Word. Remember he also gave us the book of Revelation! Often we find, however, that John makes some very simple points, but illustrates them in many and various intertwining ways.

So where shall I start with these two verses?!

Ok let's back up a bit and take 1 John 3, starting from verse 11 and going through to v24. I'll reproduce it all here, just in case you don't have a Bible to hand:

"For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. 

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 

"This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."

I'm now going to reduce it down a little so you can see the thought process, which in spite of what I said earlier is reasonably straightforward. The words "this is" shows where the argument moves on. I've put in bold the key words in each segment of the argument:

"For this is the message… We should love one another…"

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us… let us… [love] with actions and in truth…"

"This is how we know that we belong to the truth… God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything… we have confidence in God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him…"

"And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another… The one who keeps God's commands lives in him, and he in them…"

"And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."

So we should love one another. How do we know what authentic love is? Jesus showed us in dying for us, so we should love in the same sacrificial way, not just in words but authentically. And how can we know that our love is authentic and truthful? Because God knows everything, including our hearts. The fact that we keep his commands, even imperfectly, gives us some assurance that He is at work within us. He knows that we trust Him and want to do what He commands. And what is His command? It is to believe in Jesus and love one another. If we believe in Jesus and love one another then this shows that we are living in God and He is living in us. But how can we know that He is living in us? Because His Spirit works in us and assures us.

The interesting thing about this is that believing in Jesus and loving one another, with sacrificial love, just as Christ loved us and died for us, is not the reason that God lives in us. It is the fruit of God's work in our lives. It is God's evidence to us that He is working in us. 

But as we know, this does not happen in the blink of an eye. It is a lifelong struggle to bring ourselves into line with what God has called us to be. As we obey his commands more and more, we show more and more evidence that God is at work in us. 

John has said this earlier, in 1 John 2:1-6: "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 

"We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did."

Living a life consistent with the way Jesus lived is not what makes God love us. But living a life consistent with the way Jesus lived is evidence of God's love at work within us. If someone claims that they are a Christian, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and yet they do not pay attention to the need for faith working out in holiness, then they are liar. God is not at work within them, no matter what they claim. But for someone who has faith in Christ, if we sin, He is the atoning sacrifice (literally, the propitiation, the one who turns God's wrath away from us).

Returning to 1 John 3, we see that this is all about assurance. And indeed, a bit more investigation shows that this is what John's whole letter is about. How can we know that God is working in us? How can we know that we have eternal life? 1 John 2:5 says, "this is how we know we are in him…". 1 John 5:13 says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." And in our passage, we see, "This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us." (1 John 3:19-20)

The evidence we need is in our obedience, as the Spirit testifies within our hearts. And as our obedience increases, we have increasing confidence that God is in fact working in us. "If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in before God" (v21). Our hearts condemn us less and less as our obedience grows, through the work of the Spirit cleansing us from within. And we grow in confidence in God.

And as "we obey his commands and do what pleases him" we have more and more confidence to "receive from him anything we ask" (v22). At last we come to the point. We had to go through all of the above to understand that in context this verse is not all about getting whatever we want from God. It is all about the fruit of God's work in our lives giving us confidence in our eternal status in Christ. But can we receive from him anything we ask?

Well, let's just think. If our priorities are those John commends in his letter - to have more faith in Jesus and to love others more and love them more authentically, to live as Jesus did - what will we pray for? We will pray for that assurance! We will pray that God will work more obedience in our lives. We will pray that we may love others as Jesus loved the world. And yes, when we pray for that, we will receive it.

If I were a perfect father (which is far from the case) I would not give my children whatever they asked for unless it was in their best interests and those of the whole family. The more their priorities became aligned with what I knew to be their best interests and the good of the family, the more naturally they would ask me for things in keeping with those priorities. And therefore the more I would feel able to say yes and grant their requests.

So John is not saying that we should be obedient in order to buy God's favour, and be able to get good things from Him. He is challenging us and encouraging us that God is at work in us, and that as our desires fall more into line with His we shall see our requests granted.

So we should pray for whatever we want, and pray that we would be given grace to want the same things as God does.

We'll look at 1 John 5:14 next time.