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Ask and You Shall Receive
Matthew 7:7

by David A. DePra

 
"Ask, and it shall be given you."
 
     Jesus said, "Ask, and you shall receive." Yet sometimes it
seems like we do much asking, but little receiving. Why? What
is the key to answered prayer?
     In the Bible, there are three requirements for answered
prayer: First, my "asking" must be according to the will of God.
Second, I must BELIEVE that God shall do what I ask. Third, I
must pray in the name of Jesus.
     That is simple enough. But what do those requirements
really mean? What does it mean to "ask" -- by God's
definition? And what does it mean to "believe" you will receive
what you are asking? And finally, what does it really mean to
pray "in the name of Jesus?"
     First, God's definition of "asking:" To "ask" for God's will
means to SURRENDER to His will. It means to ask God to
override my will with His own. To "ask" according to God's
will is to say, and really mean, "Yet not my will, but Thine."
     Actually, God is not going to answer any prayer which
asks Him to do OUR will. And we shouldn't want Him to. God
wants all of our asking to be "according to His will" -- even if we
don't know what His will is. We can nevertheless surrender
to God in our asking, and request that He override our ignorance
with His will. God will not fail to answer such a prayer.
     Being surrendered to God in my asking naturally leads to
the second requirement for answered prayer: Faith. I must
believe God will do His will if I ask Him to.
     Notice how remarkably simple this is. All God wants is for
me to believe He shall do His will if I ask Him. What could be
easier to believe? Think about it. If someone came to you and
asked you to do your will; asked you to do what you already
wanted to do, would you hesitate doing it? No. You would
grant their request without argument.
     Such is the case with God. He wants to do His will in our
lives more than we want Him to do it. Therefore, if we ask Him
to do it, our prayer is guaranteed to be answered.
     Again, there is the possibility that I don't know the will of
God in a particular situation. So how can I believe God
will grant my request if I'm not sure of His will?
     Think about it. Do we actually think that God has never
considered this possibility? Imagine God being surprised by
the fact that we are ignorant of His will. Imagine Him saying,
"Well, I never thought about this possibility. I guess I should
have built in some kind of contingency prayer for such cases!"
     Of course this is silly. God has already told us we might
not know His will.   He says that many times we will not
know how to pray. In those cases He says the Holy Spirit
will intervene for us according to the will of God. The
point is, if we do believe God, that is, believe He is true and
faithful to do His will in our lives, then we DO believe. It does not
matter whether we know all the facts or not. Our faith is in
God, not in our ability to figure out every detail of His will.
     Faith in prayer is not a matter of trusting in my ability to
figure out God's will. Nor is it "faith in my ability to believe." It
is not faith in whether I deserve an answer to prayer, or faith in
a particular technique in prayer. Faith is in God, through Christ. It
is the belief that God cares enough to do His will if I ask Him to.
     The third requirement for answered prayer is to pray "in the
name of Jesus." Again, this is talking about more than just
tagging a slogan onto the end of a prayer in order to meet a
requirement. It speaks of a heart attitude and motivation. I pray
"in the name of Jesus" when I am praying for something Jesus
would pray for. That would certainly be the will of God. And it
would also be done with the same attitude of Jesus, that is, one
of a surrendered heart.
     There is another aspect of asking in "the name of Jesus." If
my confidence that God is hearing my prayer rests in the fact
that I have been a pretty good Christian lately, then I am NOT
really asking "Jesus' name." I'm asking in my own. I'm trusting
in MY spiritual credentials. Or if my lack of confidence is
because I've been exposed as a spiritual failure, then I am
doing the same thing, only in a negative way. I am asking "in
the name of Jesus" ONLY if my confidence rests in Christ alone
APART from myself. In effect, if God asked me why He should
answer my prayer, I should be able to say, "Because of Your
Son. That's the only reason."
     Those are the three keys to prayer: Asking according to
the will of God, believing God will answer according to His will,
and praying in the name of Jesus. God will ALWAYS answer
prayer in that attitude and spirit -- according to His will.
     God would not have made prayer a difficult thing. He would
not have created a situation where His children had to try to
figure our some secret method of reaching Him. There are
no magic words for getting God to do what we desire. There is
only a surrender which is part of the greater surrender we make
of our lives to God. It does not get anymore complicated than
that.
     Prayer is conversation with God. But it is more than that. It is
a time of honesty with God. A time when a person can get their
attitude straight. A time when a person can allow God
to wash them of the dirt they have picked up from life. Prayer
is an entering into one's private closet with God wherein eternal
issues are settled.
     Nothing can take away our freedom to pray to God. All
Christians have unconditional personal access to God through
Christ. This is vital to remember. The individual requires no
no mediator to God other than Jesus, and nothing can ever
change this Truth. It is fundamental.
     Any number of things will try to convince us otherwise; try to
rob us of our freedom. Religiousity has always sought to create a
formula out of prayer. Christians have been taught that if they just
pray this or that to God, that He will do what they want. Or
they have been taught that they need to go out and do this or
that work. Over and over again, man has tried to figure out a
way to pull God down from heaven. All the while God has been
saying, "I'm already done here, wanting to do my will. Just
surrender to it and you'll see My glory."
     It is amazing what the result is when we ASK, BELIEVE, and
pray "in the name of Jesus." Yes, God does His will in our lives.
He gives us our requests. But more than that, we BECOME
God's will. So often, the prayer process results in a change in
ME. The more I seek and surrender to the will of God in prayer,
the more I become conformed to His will. The more I become a
personification of the very answer I prayed for.
     Knowing the Truth about prayer is freeing, because it sets
me free from the burden of trying to find a magic formula to get
God to do what I want Him to do. God isn't going to do what I
want Him to do. He is going to do what He wants to do. And in
the end, there is nothing I will want more. I will see that He truly
does do "all things well."

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