When you really comprehend why God answers prayer, your faith will soar.
Why can you have confidence that God will answer your prayers? Because of his infinite favor toward those in Christ Jesus.
Jesus taught this in a simple, powerful parable.
After telling his disciples, “Ask, and it will be given to you,” he said:
“Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are 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!” (Matthew 7:9–11, ESV)
Favor Is Why God Answers Prayer
The crux of this parable is the human relationship of father and son. The father’s attitude toward his son is one of love, favor, and benevolence. Meditate on that until you believe it.
Moreover, when we speak of God in this regard, we are talking about infinite love, favor, and benevolence. He is not reluctant to give; rather, he wants to give. He enjoys giving. He is not stingy, indifferent, or selfish, like a greedy boss; rather, he delights in bringing happiness to his children. God finds pleasure in his sons and daughters.
Romans 8:31–32 says, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
A perfectly good Father
The second key aspect of the Matthew 7 parable is contrast. Jesus draws a stark contrast between human fathers and our divine heavenly Father. All human fathers are bent by evil—even the best human fathers—bent by selfishness. Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children….” So even broken fathers give good gifts to their children. When their children ask for bread, even these fathers do not offer them a stone.
Therefore, Jesus says, “How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” How much more? Infinitely more, for God is infinitely loving and overflowing with infinite favor, for if he gave us Jesus he will give us anything that is good. Think of the most loving and generous father you know, and God is infinitely more so in his attitude toward you.
This verse promises only good things, not bad. Some things we ask for are—unknown to us—bad for us, in the sense that we cannot handle them yet, like a 10-year-old given a million dollars. Or they will corrupt us, just as a 16-year-old boy would find his way into all kinds of temptation if his parents gave him an $80,000 car for his birthday. Or a gift could be bad in the comparative sense of being second best, like a rundown, two-bedroom shack on a half-acre of land compared to a new brick house on a huge farm of 2,000 acres.
So God the father gives to his children what he knows with perfect wisdom is truly, eternally good and best.
Soaking in God’s favor
You can have faith in God because of his generous favor toward you. The more convinced you are of this, through meditation on his Word, the more established your faith will be.
So here are more Scriptures for your meditation (all ESV).
Ephesians 2:4–7: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
2 Corinthians 9:8: “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”
Romans 5:8: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jeremiah 29:10–12: “I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”
Psalm 103:11–13: “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.”
Psalm 86:5: “You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.”
Psalm 86:15: “You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
Psalm 85:12: “Yes, the LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.”
Psalm 84:11–12: “The LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!”
Psalm 34:10: “The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.”
Titus 3:4–7: “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
Takeaway
Is God reluctant to answer your prayers? Is he stingy with his blessings, cold-hearted, uncaring, and remote? No, he is a generous, gracious, kind, good, and benevolent Father. God’s default attitude toward you is a gracious enjoyment in answering your prayers. In Christ, you stand under the infinite favor of God.
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)