Verse of the day: Matthew 7:11 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
good things to those who ask Him!
The one
thing that we can be assured of is that God will ALWAYS answer our prayers, and
He will always give us what is best for us. Please read that sentence again…
Did you? Good...now I will say again that God will give us what it best for us,
not what WE think is best for us. The majority of the time what we want from
God and what He knows is best are at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are
also those times when He wants to give us what we have asked for in prayer, but
we may not be ready to receive it. Therefore, the time frame in which He gives
it will be much different than what we may desire it to be. We are reminded in
this passage that God wants to give good things to them that ask Him.
Interestingly, in Luke 11:13, Luke tells us that God desires to give us the
Holy Spirit. How do these two passages line up with one another? Well, the best
thing we could ever receive from the Lord is the Holy Spirit, who seals and
indwells each believer who has called upon, and accepted Jesus Christ as Savior
and Lord (1 Cor 6:19-20; 2 Cor 1:21-22; Eph 1:13; 4:30). I have had many people
ask, “If God wants the best for me, why didn’t He answer my prayers?” The
question is often asked in response to getting a “no” or “wait” response from the
Lord. Again, just because we do not have our prayers answered in the way we
think is best, does not mean that the prayer was not answered. The other
statement I often hear is, “If God wanted the best for me, He would have given
me what I asked Him for” or “If God wants the best for me, He would have
healed, me (my child, my parent, my best friend, etc.)”. Again, we base whether
or not God gave us what was best based on our opinion of what we see as being
best for us. I must reiterate that we often are way too ignorant of what is
really going on behind the scene and there do not know what is really best for
us from Heaven’s perspective. The Word of God tells us that we often do not
receive what we are asking for because we do not know what we are asking for (Jm
4:2-4). We often ask with selfish motives with no thought for God’s glory or
God’s will in what we are asking for. This is why it is so important for us to
be in God’s Word continually, learning who God is and what is His mind, growing
in our knowledge of Christ (Phil 2:5; 3:8; 2 Pt 3:18). God tells us that He
will give us the desires of our hearts. However, there are conditions to that
promise. We must trust the Lord, delight ourselves in Him, and commit our ways
to Him (Ps 37:3-5). When our thinking and desires line up with God’s, then we
will be mindful of what we are asking for, keeping in mind His will and plan
for our lives, and ultimately, and above all, His glory. We are to be
consistent in prayer; praying without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17). We must ask, and
ask, not fainting, and being persistent (Luke 11:5-13). Too often, when we do
not see an answer, we assume God does not want to answer that prayer and we
give up; we stop praying, only to have the prayer later answered, and we feel
shame because of our lack of faith. This is why it is so important that the
greatest gift God can give His child is a filling of the Holy Spirit when we
pray. In praying, we must ask for the Spirit’s guidance. It is a good practice
to pray the Word of God. Romans 8:26-29 reminds us that it is the Spirit that
helps us in our weakness because we do not know how we ought to pray. It is the
Spirit that knows the mind of God and the will of God. It is His intercession that
works all things together for our good and God’s glory; and the reason it works
together for our good is because God answers in accordance to His will. Romans
8:31:32 also reminds us that if God is for us, who can be against us? If He
gave us His son, how much more will He then give us all things? Again, not all
things that we selfishly desire, but those things which line up with His will
and plan for our lives and for the lives of those we pray for. The bottom line
is that when we pray we must pray without giving up, and being persistent,
knowing that God will answer and give us what is best for us in whatever given
situation we find ourselves in. 1 Peter 1:6-9 reminds us that our trials are
more precious than gold. So ultimately, even if the answer to our prayers is
that He chooses for us to remain in a difficult situation for a time, it is for
our best because in the end we will come out of it trusting Him more, as we see
Him working in it and comforting us in it, giving us joy and the peace that
passes all understanding, in spite of the circumstances; and ultimately molding
us so that we are more like Jesus in our outlook and response to life in
general (Phil 4:6-7; Rom 8:28-29). The bottom line is that we need to be
persistent in our prayers and not lose heart because God will always answer; we
just have to be ready to accept the answer, regardless of what that answer
might be (Lk 18:1).
No comments:
Post a Comment