God will answer my prayers because of his words and his ways.
When a wealthy man dies, you can be sure his heirs will carefully read his will. The words of that document determine what they will inherit.
We are in a similar situation. In the previous article in this series, we saw that God is perfectly faithful and truthful. He keeps his every word. Not a single promise or word is forgotten. Once you believe that, you approach the Bible like the heirs of a wealthy man approach his will. For if you know what God has promised, then you know what words he stands behind with perfect faithfulness.
A breathtaking promise
Truth #3 in this series is familiar but crucial. It is also hard to believe—really believe with conviction. If you do, you are well on your way to being established in faith. If you do not, you will pray perhaps with hope, but rarely faith.
The crucial truth is, God has repeatedly promised to answer the prayer that meets certain conditions. For instance, Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive it all” (Matthew 21:22, NASB20).
Okay, you know that, but do you believe it, really believe it with conviction? Do you believe the holy truthfulness of God stands behind those words? That he would never break that promise just as he would never deny himself?
Conditions
One thing that makes this truth hard to believe is, there are conditions, and we have all bumped into them. God does not promise to answer all your prayers, or everyone’s prayers. We find one condition for answered prayer in this verse, and elsewhere in the Bible we find more.
Four important conditions to answered prayer are:
1. God answers the prayer of faith.
In the ESV, Matthew 21:22 says, “Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
More daunting is James 1:6–8: “Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (ESV).
We must have faith.
But I have a suggestion. In my experience, trying to vanquish even a hint of doubt can tie me in knots if I dwell on it. If I focus on myself rather than on God and his faithfulness and his promise to answer prayer, it dismantles faith and leaves me uncertain. We need to keep our focus primarily on God.
2. God answers prayers in accordance with his will.
This is big. First John 5:14–15 says, “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.”
In Scripture God has revealed much about his will, but much of God’s will is also hidden. Unfortunately, trying to know whether our desire is God’s will can again tie us in knots and easily sink our faith.
That raises a major problem. If we cannot pray with faith until we know God’s will with certainty, we will rarely be able to pray with faith.
In my experience, the solution has been this. If I pray in agreement with the general promises and character of God—for example, promises to heal one’s body, or God’s heart to save his people from what harms them—I assume my request is his will and I focus on his lavish promises to answer prayer.
Yes, there will be times when I am wrong about God’s specific will in a situation, but I cannot know that in advance. Just yesterday, for instance, I learned of the death of a former colleague. A week or two ago I had heard she was hospitalized and in serious condition, and I prayed for her and received by faith that she was healed based on God’s perfect faithfulness and truthfulness.
Nevertheless, she died. How does that not leave me disillusioned and ruin my ability in the future to pray with faith? My answer: I believe God’s hidden will was done. His ways are unsearchable.
In the future I will pray and still assume it is his will to heal and deliver, and I will trust in his promises to answer prayer. Although we are not God and thus cannot know his will with certainty, still he calls us to pray with faith and believe we do know his will based on what Scripture shows to be his ways.
3. God answers the prayers of the repentant, who walk in the light.
Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (ESV).
No Christian is perfect, so the requirement for answered prayer is not perfection, but rather confession and repentance of known sin and faith in the forgiveness that is in Jesus.
First John 1:7–9 says, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
4. God answers in his way and time.
When the children of Israel suffered under Pharaoh and cried out for deliverance, they could not have imagined the harrowing details of how God would actually rescue them from Egypt, or how long they would have to wait for it to come. In the same way, we probably cannot imagine when and how God will answer our prayer. If we cannot trust him and be patient, even for a lifetime, we cannot be sure of answers.
Hebrews 10:36 says, “You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”
God will answer my prayers
These are the major conditions to answered prayer. You need to take them into account, but the more you focus on them, the harder it will be to believe with childlike simplicity that God hears and answers your prayers. If we focus on the conditions rather than the promise, we will rarely be able to believe with conviction that God will answer our prayer.
God has shown his gracious, loving willingness to answer our prayers by giving us breathtaking promises. That is where our focus needs to lie. This is God’s default position. He wants to answer your prayers. He loves you. The Lord wants to meet your needs and bless you in countless ways.
I do not need to know everything to pray with confidence. Faith is a matter of simple focus. In the Gospel narratives, this is how people came to Jesus and received what they desired. I believe God will answer my prayers because of his words and his ways. I choose to focus on God as perfectly faithful and truthful, and that he has given simple promises to hear and answer my prayers. His promise reveals his heart. I believe his heart and his word.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)