Confidence of Answered Prayer – I John 3:21 - 22 TEXT: Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight (1 John 3:21 – 22 NASB). TRUTH: Obedience produces confidence. COMMENTARY: As we express our love for others by meeting their needs we obtain confidence before God. In an earlier entry we learned that confidence came as a result of abiding in him. Since God is love, as we abide in him we will grow in our desire and ability to love, which is then expressed in meeting the needs of others. This confidence gives us boldness to come before him and ask him for what we need. John then tells us that whatever we ask for we will receive from him. I think it is important that we stop and consider the word “whatever”. I know that we all have made request of him that we did not receive what was asked for. Is there something that affects what we ask for that relates to how he answers us? What motivates what we ask for? The word because begins to draw our focus to these conditions that may affect what we ask for or the likelihood of our request being answered. Our text tells us that we receive because “we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” A life of obedience and doing that which pleases him I believe affects what we ask for and how he responds. How likely will a parent grant a favor to a disobedient child? As a believer, we are his child. Further insight on this is given in 1 John 5:14 – 15; “And this is the confidence which we have before 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 which we have asked from Him” (NASB). As we abide in him we come to know and understand him and this affects what we ask for. When we are on the same page with our Father we generally aren’t asking for something from a different page. When we are on the same page and are making a request from within the framework of that page, he will more than likely hear us and grant our request. A second condition John lists is doing things that are pleasing in his sight. Doing his will by keeping his commandments would be pleasing in his sight. Expressing your love for others by putting forth effort to bring together needs and resources would be pleasing to him. As we learn to please him we also learn how to make request and walk in his ways. Remember, if there is iniquity in our heart God will not hear our request (Psalm 66:18), so let’s walk with him in a pleasing way. If we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight then whatever we ask we will receive from Him. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4 NASB). When we live to please God, he will find ways to please us. When we delight ourselves in his love, our desires will be according to his will. APPLICATION: True love sees and meets the needs of others in practical ways, but it also expresses itself in obedience to God and in doing things that are pleasing in his sight. How well we do here may be an indication of how far along the path of maturing from little children to young men to fathers we have progressed. If zero is at being born again and ten is a mature father, where would place yourself? PRAYER: Father, encourage me to keep your commandments and do the things that are pleasing in your sight.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:47:46 +0000
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