OUR PRAYERS: DECLARATIVE OR HUMBLY ASKING

 

What power and authority do we have? This issue is presently creating a lot of division in the Church. Some argue that because Jesus had given power and authority to heal and to cast out demons to His disciples on two occasions, we can still do as they had done.

 

However, according to James, we are a fading mist:

·       James 4:13–16 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

 

Consequently, we should not make bold claims regarding what we can accomplish. Instead, we are merely a mist without much substance. If we understand this, we should recognize that our lives depend upon what God wills (Psalm 57:2). Therefore, to make bold declarations, even in prayer regarding what we can accomplish, is evil. Even the angels lack such authority. Instead, they are servants of God:

 

·       2 Peter 2:10–11 (NLT) He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority. These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings without so much as trembling. But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the Lord a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings.

 

·       Jude 9 (NLT) But even Michael, one of the mightiest of the angels, did not dare accuse the devil of blasphemy, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you!”…

 

Consequently, we must regard any spiritual good that might come out of our lives as a gift of God (John 15:4-5):

 

·       2 Corinthians 3:5 (ESV) Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,

 

This is why our Lord placed His Spirit in our weak, fragile, and vulnerable bodies:

 

·       2 Corinthians 4:7–8 (ESV) But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.

 

Our Lord is purposely teaching us complete dependence upon Him (Psalm 62) who is unseen

 

·       2 Corinthians 5:6–7 (ESV) So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.

 

Therefore, if we expect to be powerful and to experience a steady diet of miracles, disappointment will result. Instead, we should expect to be humbled (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Consequently, it is He who will exalt us and not our own power.

 

JESUS’ “WHATEVER” PROMISES

 

 

It is easy to misunderstand Jesus’ teachings for a number of reasons:

 

• We might not want to understand them.

• We might not be in tune with the Spirit who guides our understanding.

• Scripture interprets Scripture. Therefore, our understanding of the Bible might not be full enough to accurately interpret a particular verse.

• We might misunderstand the Biblical terminology.

 

Let me give you an example of the final principle:

 

• “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:7 ASV)

 

Although some interpret this verse as Jesus offering us a blank check for “whatever” we want, it places upon us several requirements. We must abide in Jesus and His Words must govern our lives. He and His teachings must be #1.

 

When this is so, we have despaired of self and want His will above our own. Consequently, the Lord’s Prayer will govern our will and heart, and we will therefore pray according to His will:

 

• Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10)

 

It is only after we get our priorities straight that we should ask for our “daily bread.” Therefore, as His servants, we should first seek to bear fruit for Him:

 

• “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.” (John 15:16-17)

 

We are to be bearing fruit for our Lord, loving one another. Therefore, the promise of “whatever you ask” only pertains to those who have put God’s will above their own.

 

To ask in “my name” also pertains to asking according to Jesus’s nature and will. When we do so, we can be sure that we will receive “whatever we ask”:

 

• And this is the confidence that we have toward 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 that we have asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)

 

Therefore, when I ask Jesus to make me a more loving servant and husband, I am confident that He is doing so, even though this is a slow and often painful process.

 

We cannot have this assurance when we ask for things not according to His will:

 

• You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:3)

 

As a young Christian, I would mine the Scriptures for verses that would make me feel good about myself. By God’s patient mercies, I now read them to understand what is most important—the will and mind of God.

 

This might seem burdensome, but this also will become a delight as you continue to abide in His Word, as it had been for Jesus:

 

• Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (John 4:34)

 

Obedience is nourishing!

UNDERSTANDING GOD’S WORKINGS BRINGS CONFIDENCE

When understood wrongly, many verses can undermine our confidence that God will hear our prayers. Take this one, for example:

·       “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” (Matthew 6:5; ESV)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught that if we pray in order to get man’s praise, we will get just that and not God’s praise and provisions. However, this teaching can provoke self-despair and uncertainty about our Lord responding to our prayers.

Why? Because we care deeply about what people think about us! We care about whether they like, admire, respect us, or think that we are spiritual? Have we then already received our reward in the form of the esteem of others?

Not at all! There is a big difference between having exclusively fleshly motives and having a dual nature – one sinful (fleshly) and one spiritual, as we now have:

·       But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (Galatians 5:16-17)

We are in the uncomfortable state of having two antagonistically opposed natures. For us, life is a continual battle between the two. Consequently, in our spirit, we want to please God, but in the flesh, we crave the approval of men. Paul illuminated this painful struggle in which we find ourselves, even after we come to our Savior:

·       So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25)

Even in Jesus the struggle between the flesh and our redeemed mind continues. This raises an important question: “Who is the real me before God – the flesh or the redeemed spirit?” In God’s mind, we are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) and a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:4-9). Even those of the contentious Corinthian Church are characterized in this manner:

·       Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

Even though, in many regards, they were sinning, in God’s sight, they “were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.” This new identity took precedence over the way that they had been and even over the fact that they were still sinning.

We struggle against sin daily. Why? Because our Lord has merely created a beachhead in our lives! Meanwhile, we are still awaiting our final redemption and even adoption:

·       And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23)

Therefore, it shouldn’t surprise us that we still struggle mightily against the temptations of the flesh. And this will continue until our Lord returns for us (1 John 3:2; Philippians 3:12-14). Meanwhile, are we disqualified from receiving anything from the Lord, when we temporarily surrender to the fleshly desires?

Once, seeing an elderly woman fall down in the middle of a busy intersection, I spontaneously ran to her rescue. However, as soon I began to help her to safety on the other side of the street, I began to look around to see how many saw my “heroism.”

The fleshly desires will always be present. They do not sleep once we come to Christ. Sometimes, we will even succumb to them. However, our Savior knows about our weaknesses and has made provision for us:

·       If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

We therefore can trust that when we confess our sins, we are not only forgiven but cleansed of all of our past sins and their defiling effects. Meanwhile, the Spirit is bringing forth many fruits through this painful struggle. In order to trust in God, we have to first learn to despair of ourselves and our own righteousness. Even Paul had to learn this lesson by despairing of life:

·       For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

We cannot learn to trust God until we learn that we cannot trust in ourselves. We can only learn such a lesson as we struggle against our sinful temptations. Paul also learned that he could not hope in his own worthiness, which he came to see as filthy rags:

·       But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— (Philippians 3:7-9)

As we grow in Christ, the Spirit shows us our utter unworthiness but also Christ’s worthiness. Therefore, do not despair when you see the ugly sin within. This is part of His design. We need to see that He is our only hope, and we will only see this when we learn that we cannot hope in ourselves. And when we see this, we will adore Him all the more!

DISAPPOINTMENT WITH GOD

I have been so distressed to hear the many testimonies of young people who have left the church and its faith. So many of these testimonies involve a simple equation: Their expectations about God and His promises have not measured up to the reality of their lives. They have lamented:

·       I prayed and trusted, but God didn’t answer my prayers.

·       I asked for His guidance, but He always remained silent.

·       I was confident that He had led me into my marriage, but He clearly did not. My wife took off with another man. I can no longer trust Him; nor do I want to.

My story had been similar. I was trying to follow Christ the best I could, but it wasn’t good enough. I became overwhelmed with depression and panic attacks, and God refused to answer my prayers. I couldn’t understand why He was allowing me to suffer so. He promised me His comfort, but it seemed that everyone else had more comfort than I. He promised to love me, but I felt totally unloved, unlovable, and utterly rejected. He promised that He would never leave me, but I felt entirely abandoned. From my perspective, the Christian life was a huge fraud.

If I had a viable alternative, I would have turned away, but I didn’t have one. I had already tried out every promising option, and each had all failed me. Either God would somehow come through for me or I was finished.

His silence convinced me of either of two things. Either I was so worthless that God wouldn’t waste His time with me, or God didn’t exist, and everything that I had experienced was just a matter of self-deception.

However, since I had nowhere else to turn, I began to read the Psalms and found that the Psalmists had the same problems. David had complained:

·       How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psalm 13:1-2)

This Psalm made me think. David had been the man “after God’s own heart,” and yet he suffered such torment. His God had promised David that He would never leave him, and that He would establish an everlasting kingdom through his descendent. How then could David feel so forsaken? Clearly, he had been praying to God, but God didn’t seem to be answering him, and it wasn’t because He had rejected David. Perhaps He hadn’t rejected me?

Many of the Psalmists also complained that their suffering didn’t match up with their glowing expectations based on God’s promises. This was also true for His Chosen People, the Nation of Israel.  The Psalmist Ethan reviewed God’s glorious promises to King David:

·       “I [God] will maintain my love to him [David] forever, and my covenant with him will never fail…I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered…that his line will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun; it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky." (Psalm 89:28-37)

However, by the next verse, Ethan’s tone dramatically changed. Now, he began to accuse God of unfaithfulness:

·       But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one. You have renounced the covenant with your servant and have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken through all his walls and reduced his strongholds to ruins…O Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David? (Psalm 89:38-40)

According to Ethan, God had betrayed His people and had reneged on His promises. Israel’s present degraded status failed to measure up to what their God had promised them. Ethan seemed to be rejecting the faith of his Father’s.

I was drawn into this perplexing drama. It seemed that I wasn’t alone. The Psalmists also felt betrayed by their God, who had failed to live up to His promises.

The Psalmist Asaph had also felt betrayed by God. It was apparent to him that the arrogant enemies of God were living far better than the righteous. He therefore complained:

·       Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. (Psalm 73:13) 

According to Asaph, it had been a disappointment to serve God. However, these Psalmists had been the exemplars of the faith, and they were concluding that their faith had been a waste of time, just like the testimonies of those youth who had departed from the faith.

Even the Messiah claimed that His Father had abandoned Him:

·       Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

However, we know that this abandonment had only been temporary. By the end of the Psalm, He proclaimed that this “abandonment” had not been the end of the story:

·       For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. (Psalm 22:24)

Was there a lesson here for me? Perhaps I too had failed to see the big picture. Perhaps I was suffering from myopia. Did the Psalmist Ethan resolve His conflict with God? He simply concluded:

·       Praise be to the LORD forever! Amen and Amen. (Psalm 89:52)

It doesn’t seem that Ethan was able to see the big picture – that God would once again exalt His nation and show Himself faithful to His covenant, His promises to David. However, it does seem that he had concluded that there was more to the picture than what he was presently able to see.

Perhaps there was more to my suffering than what I was able to see. Perhaps my Savior had secretly been loving me in the midst of my tears, and even suffering along with me (Hebrews 4:15).

However, the Psalmist Asaph was subsequently blessed with a revelation. He entered the Temple and was shown the big picture – the prospering of the arrogant and the suffering of the righteous were only temporary. After this revelation, he gratefully proclaimed:

·       I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:22-26)

Asaph had not been able to contemplate any possible resolution for his conflict. The arrogant were prospering and the righteous were suffering. However, he had been shown otherwise. He had been enabled to see beyond his limited experiences and observations.

Perhaps also there was something that I was missing. Perhaps there was a purpose for my suffering as there had been for Asaph’s. Perhaps I was demanding too much – an immediate understanding about what I was suffering.

Perhaps also those who had left the church were also expecting too much. Perhaps they weren’t ready for the big picture of God’s plan. Perhaps, instead, God was requiring them to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

Why do some persevere and continue to look towards God, even in their perplexity, while others leave? I cannot answer this question. I just pray that they will return to our only possible Hope.

Meanwhile, I thank God for what I had suffered. I liken myself to the Psalmist David who confessed:

·       It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. (Psalm 119:71-72)