I have two ideas that I want to get across to you today, two rather simple ideas. God's wants to answer our prayers. And God wants to answer our prayers because God is good.
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." (Matthew 7:7, 8 NASB) Now if that was the only passage in the Bible that taught us about prayer, and you were a new believer just reading that passage for the first time, you would probably expect every single prayer you offered to be answered. If you've been a Christian for awhile you know it's not quite that simple; but that shouldn't weaken the message that the Son of God is attempting to communicate in this passage. Jesus knew exactly what He was saying. He said it the way He said it for a reason. He wanted to give us the impression that God wants to answer our prayers. God intends to answer our prayers. We should expect God to answer our prayers.
"If you abide in Me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." (John 15:7 NASB) In the passage in Matthew we didn't have any conditions mentioned for answers to prayer. In John 15 Jesus introduces a condition. We have to abide (live) in Christ and His words need to abide (live) in us. If we can somehow fulfill this condition we can ask whatever we want and it will be done for us. I'm not asking you to focus on the condition today. We'll talk about living in Christ and having His world live in us later. The emphasis I want to make is that God wants to answer our prayers. He intends to answer our prayers. He is telling us that we can get to the point where we can have anything we want ("ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you").
If you don't agree with the underlined sentence then you don't have a problem with my teaching; you have a problem with the teaching of the Lord Jesus. Just to be clear, a person who lives in Jesus and who has Jesus words living in Him (the condition for getting whatever you want) is going to want different things that the person who does not live in Jesus and have Jesus words living in him. A person who lives in Jesus is going to be flowing in beautiful harmony with the mind and will of God. How does you heart respond to the statement underlined in the previous paragraph? If somewhere deep in your heart you find yourself saying "that simply can't be true," that my friends is unbelief. And it has to be dealt with.
What is it about God that makes Him so generous? Both Jesus and His younger brother James direct our attention to the goodness of God when teaching about prayer. James teaches us that "God … gives to all generously and without reproach." (James 1:5 NASB) Jesus tells us that "if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?" (Matthew 7:11 NASB)
As I was meditating on those verses I began to get a sense of the all of the goodness in the heart of God. God doesn't just want to bless us, He yearns to bless us. He is very passionate about His desire to do good to us and for us. The goodness of God is like Niagara Falls. The force of gravity pushing that water over the falls is tremendous. God's goodness is like the force of gravity and His blessings are like the water.
But did you know that we can turn Niagara Falls off? A certain percentage of the water is diverted into a hydro electric power station. If they want to they can divert all of the flow of the water. They can turn Niagara Falls off. I suppose they do this by flipping a switch. They flip a switch and a door in the bottom of the river bed opens and all of the water flows down the hole and into the power plant.
There is a switch inside of each one of us. The off position is labeled "unbelief." The on position is labeled "faith." As we learn to get the switch moved into the "faith" position we are going to begin to get very, very wet with the blessings of God. When most people teach about faith they put the emphasis on the switch. We have to have faith. We sometimes come perilously close to teaching people to have faith in faith. But we aren't supposed to have faith in faith; we are supposed to have faith in God. And our ability to have faith in God is only as great as our sense of who and what God is.
So this week I would encourage you to begin to let some of God's words live inside of you. I would choose this simple phrase. "God gives to all men generously and without reproach." Write it down. Say it to yourself over and over again while walking, driving to work, or doing the dishes. Think about that Niagara Falls illustration and the goodness of God. Think about the love and goodness of God coming rolling over the falls and splashing down all around you. And as you think about it, pray and ask God to give you a revelation of His goodness in your heart.
God's wants to answer our prayers. And God wants to answer our prayers because God is good.
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