Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
9/17/2021
Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you? Really?
Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you? Really?
John 15:7. "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."
So could you answer this? What prayers are guaranteed to work?
I think it best that we set up a base level of understanding before we answer that question. Prayer is for granting us believers the joy of seeing God‘s will executed through us as it becomes our will. The truth is the only joy that last is when our desires are drawn from his desires and those desires are the ones attached to the promise.
“Ask whatever you wish.”
Let’s take a look at first John 3:22. He said, “what so ever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do the things that are pleasing or gratifying in his sight”.
Our first thoughts are that I have prayed a thousand times, and really needed that prayer answered and I heard nothing!
Let’s start off with what prayer is not. It is not for gratifying natural desires. Prayer was given as a gift for the joy and satisfaction of those people, so in tune with God that they keep his commands and abide in him. If you have no interest in obeying God. Which includes the whole of a spirt filled life, morals, values, character, service and getting your desires from his desires. You’re not going to really be happy with the outcome of your prayer requests. Because prayer is not for you with that mindset. It is not a formula that allows you to pray to God like he is a slot machine so you can enjoy your pleasures and your great past times that you are openly putting in front of being satisfied in Christ first.
That doesn’t mean we don’t genuinely come up with real needs for others in the desperation of the moment. And God may or may not answer that but one thing is for sure we are probably not abiding in his vine. Or living a true spirit lead and filled life. Or can fanatically state that our desires are coming from the ones we are receiving from God that we have received through his word and the revelation of the Holy Spirit.
James said, “you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives”. So you can spend it on your pleasures and then in the next paragraph calls them adulterous. What does that say to you? What does that mean to you?
I don’t believe God has any issues with you driving a Jaguar or living in an exceptionally nice house and having a successful career. But he said don’t put any other gods before me. He said I am the vine you are the branches. If you are really abiding in him then the fruit that you should be showing should be the fruit from his vine, from his branch, and from his roots. He said you will know mine by their fruits. So let’s be brutally honest.
“Show me the Fruit”.
If you were to put a new app on your phone that gauged whether your prayers were asking for spiritual insight and gifts or physical gifts for your pleasure, what do you think those percentages would look like? When we were born again did, we stay natural beings, or did he breathe a new spirit within us. Were we reborn as a spirit man whose eyes were opened for the first time and saw spiritual things and understood better a spiritual God?
What exactly does it mean to abide in God? And do the things that are pleasing in his sight? What does it mean to remain in me, and my words remain in you? He says when you do those things THEN you can ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Because you have learned about God by the reading of his word, which is alive and miraculous in every verse. The only way that you can abide in God and know God is by being saturated in his word which gives you revelations into who he is and what he desires for his people and his children. Abiding in him opens up your spiritual eyes so that you can see what the father desires and you stay there until they become your desires also.
“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight”. Read full chapter · 1 John 3:22 …
Prayer is for granting us believers the joy of seeing God‘s will executed through us as it becomes our will! Are you really seeing this? The truth is the only joy that lasts is when our desires are drawn from his desires and those desires are the ones attached to the promise. “Ask whatever you wish.”
Lord help me to abide in you. Help me be more like you. Kill this old nature within me so I can really know the Love of You. Lord, I want to grow in you. Give me a new hunger for your word so that I might know your heart.
Oceans Where Feet may Fall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga3DmPRPAQQ
Excerpts are taken heavily from John Pipers "What is Prayer"
