Confidence in Prayer

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. 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 5:13-15 (ESV)

The verse to memorize for today from our focal scripture is John 5:14 which reads in the New King James Version: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” In yesterday’s verse, Hebrews 4:16, we learned that we can put our trust in a Great High Priest, in Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom we have genuine confidence and who makes intercession for us before the Father. Bearing that in mind, in today’s focal verses, John states that we can know we have eternal life in Him. And, knowing that, we can ask anything according to His will and He hears us. Furthermore, knowing that He hears us, we can make our requests to Him and He will answer us.

What is prayer? I want to deliberately be repetitious in this explication to help us remember the truth of these verses, and especially 1 John 5:14, our memory verse for today. First of all, prayer is coming before the Son of God, our Savior. Prayer is coming before Him with genuine confidence. Prayer is coming before Him with confidence and asking according to His will. Prayer is coming before Him with confidence and asking according to His will, knowing that He hears us and answers us. To reiterate: We must first come to Him, with confidence, ask of him, ask according to His will, and know (believe) that He will answer. The same John who wrote the letters of John also wrote the gospel of John. In John 14:14 he wrote the words of Jesus: “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” (NKJV). In the letter, John added “according to His will” to help believers understand that any blanket list of wants would have to be under the scrutiny of the Lord’s will. In our own unregenerate, bound-by-sin ways, we often pray for what is not within the parameters of what is the Lord’s will for us. But He knows what is best for us and answers accordingly when we pray.

We may pray earnestly and ask God for our needs and wants. But at the same time we pray, “Lord, Thy will be done.” And as the Lord added in the Model Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” S. D. Gordon, a great Christian writer of the past century, stated: “The purpose of prayer is to get God’s will done. The greatest prayer any one can offer is ‘Thy will be done.’ It will be offered in a thousand different forms, with a thousand details, as needs arise daily. But every true prayer comes under those four words: ‘Thy will be done.’ ” Eugene Peterson in The Message Bible gives I John 5:13-15 thus: “My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he is listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.” To God be the glory! - Ethelene Dyer Jones 02.05.2017