Last week at Journey Group on Wednesday night, someone asked for prayer regarding missing individuals. We prayed, specifically, that God would bring resolution by Sunday (yesterday.) Today comes word that both individuals were located yesterday - on Sunday.

A lot of Christians are reluctant to be specific in prayer. Several years ago, I prayed for 7 months that God would bring my youngest daughter into a serious relationship with a godly young man by Christmas of that year. What happened? On Christmas Eve we went to dinner with Gina and her new boyfriend, Nate, and it was obvious that God had spectacularly answered my prayer … to the specific day I requested. Shortly after, they were engaged and are now happily married.

Does this mean we can pray specifically for anything and get what we want? Of course not. James 4:1-3 throw some light on the subject:

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

Note two things …

1st) We do not have because we do not ask
2nd) When we don’t receive what we ask for, we ask wrongly

There is a clear lesson here. The better we know Jesus, the more consistent and intimate our relationship with Him, the closer we walk and commune with Him … the better we will know His heart and desires, and the more aligned our will becomes with His. THEN we can ask and expect to receive in faith (James 1:6)

Jesus tells us something extraordinary in Matthew 21:21-23 …

“Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ’Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Note receiving what we ask for, requires that we “believe”. What does this mean? Name it and claim it? No. To “believe” in Jesus means to commit the whole of your life to Him, to place all other things below Him, to follow Him no matter the cost, to make Him the central focus of your life. To “believe” means to orchestrate all that you do in life around Him, and to do everything in life (with no distinction between secular and sacred) for His glory. It means consistently shining the light of His truth in your life to your last breath.

Get to know Jesus. Follow Him. Draw close to His heart. And then ask specifically in prayer. And receive.

Bob
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
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Bob Pratico
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
(my Sojourn blog)