A transformational spiritual exercise to help you sense that God is your gracious Father
I want to share a helpful devotional practice I have been using in recent months. It has been spiritually rich for me, and it transforms my understanding of God and my feelings about him.
Normally I use this devotional practice first thing in the morning. I commonly wake up in the morning with the sense that I am unworthy, and that God does not feel good about me, probably stemming from the notion that I must earn my way with him and deserve his love. A few months ago I began intentionally focusing at these times on God as my gracious Father, and I meditate one by one on the qualities that constitute his gracious fatherhood.
Depending on how much time I have, I might do this for 10 minutes, or for an hour. But there is a sweetness to it always, and by the end of this meditation the negative feelings are gone.
Example
Here is what I typically say:
Gracious Father, your favor toward me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your benevolence [goodwill] toward me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your beneficence [good works] in my life is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your generosity toward me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your love for me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your kindness toward me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your gentleness with me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your goodness toward me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your listening to my prayers and answering them is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your forgiveness toward me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your mercy toward me is my treasure and delight.
Gracious Father, your adoption of me as your son is my treasure and delight.
Meditation
With each line I pause and meditate on that reality, letting the words sink in and do their work, giving the Holy Spirit room to reveal the truth of it. He does that time and again. The exercise is repetitive but has never been rote.
At the heart of what it means to know God is to know him as gracious Father. This devotional practice has transformed not just my mornings, but my experiential knowledge of God.
Truth is too important for us to neglect any of the guides God has provided.
For several months now, we have been digging into the idea that God leads us into essential truths about himself and salvation through four guides. They are (1) the Scriptures, (2) the Holy Spirit, (3) the church, and (4) prayer. If we follow these four guides with patience, faith, and wisdom, we can be assured of finding the truth—even if we are a new Christian! Through these four guides God will certainly lead us into the truth that assures us of eternal life.
Harmony
Just as a car needs all four wheels, you need all four guides working in harmony. Do not neglect or ignore any of them. Remember the Pharisees, who were radically religious yet profoundly wrong. Jesus corrected them: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39–40, ESV) They examined one of the four guides closely, yet they still went astray.
The Sadducees made the opposite error, failing to give adequate attention to Scripture. Jesus corrected them as well: “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mark 12:24, ESV)
So if we rely exclusively on one of these guides in contradiction with the others, or if we neglect, ignore, or reject one of the guides, we can stray into error.
Examples
For example, although objective Scripture is free of error, we might err when we interpret and apply it. False teachers usually appeal to the same Bible as orthodox Christians, but they misinterpret it. This is why we need the wider, historic church and the fruits of its two-thousand year history of interpreting the Bible together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Over that period the church has thoroughly wrestled through disagreements about the key doctrines necessary for salvation, corrected the errors of particular eras, groups, leaders, and locales, and long ago reached general consensus on the essentials.
Similarly, with regard to the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth through the Scriptures, we may have subjective thoughts and feelings that are not from the Holy Spirit. They may come from personal convictions shaped by our upbringing, for example. This is why we need the objective correction that comes from both Scripture and historic church doctrine.
For instance, some people have grown up in heretical religions such as the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses that do not believe Jesus Christ is the eternal, uncreated, divine Son of God. As a result, their consciences may affirm that what they learned in “church” and from parents is true, even though objective Scripture and the wider, historic church emphatically deny this false teaching. A Mormon might think that his Mormon-shaped conscience is the Holy Spirit leading him.
God is faithful to lead us out of an unhealthy religious group if we commit ourselves to follow the truth even if it contradicts our traditions. Psalm 25:5 gives an essential Scriptural prayer that God will surely answer: “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.” The Holy Spirit will answer that prayer over time by illumining Scripture as we read. If we are in an unsound group, over time we will see how the Bible contradicts their teaching in significant ways. The Holy Spirit will disturb our conscience over what we hear. We can trust God to lead us into truth and a church marked by sound teaching.
Through prayerful agreement between the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the true church, God reliably guides everyone who is committed to the truth at all costs and seeks it with prayer, trust, and persistence.
Next week
God is reliable, but we are not. What can make us susceptible to error is the state of our soul. Exhibit A is the Pharisees. So next week we begin an examination of eight soul qualities that make us immune to false teaching.
If you do not pray to understand truth, your hands are tied behind your back, your eyes are closed, and you are hard of hearing. And then there are the serious obstacles.
In previous posts we learned that God leads even the newest believer into truth through three divine guides: the inerrant Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the church. Today we add one more crucial guide into truth, which I did not identify earlier and which will bring us to four guides into truth. This fourth guide is prayer. These four guides, used in harmony, enable even the newest believer to know the truth with confidence.
What do you do when you do not understand a Bible verse, or a biblical doctrine? Is your first reaction to reach for a book that might explain it to you? Do you google the question? Do you ask someone such as a pastor or Bible scholar about it?
Or is your first reaction to pause and pray that God would give you understanding into that Scripture or doctrine? And if the question is significant enough to you, do you write out your question in your prayer journal?
What you do reveals what you truly believe about the role of prayer in understanding truth. It reveals what you believe in your heart of hearts about whether God will answer your prayers for understanding into theological truths.
Prayer is the fourth guide into truth, along with the Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the church.
Psalm 25
Psalm 25:4–5 says, “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” (ESV)
Here David prays that God would lead him into the truth. What is theology? What is doctrine? It is truth about God and his ways; it is truth about spiritual things. You can and should ask God to be your teacher. No one can teach you about God better than God himself.
Of course he will typically teach you through others, but by being careful to ask him to lead you into theological truths you ensure he is in charge of the entire process. If you pray, he will bring the teachers, videos, books, and teachings to you that answer your prayer.
Six reasons why prayer is an essential guide into truth
1. God teaches the humble.
Psalm 25:9 says, “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.”
Prayer is an act of humility and dependence. Therefore we can conclude he leads and teaches those who pray for understanding.
Next week we look at the second reason why prayer is an essential guide into truth.
What Moses learned on top of Mount Sinai about our prayers and God’s gracious heart
Suppose you were not a tech-oriented person, and you needed help with your computer. Let’s say it has recently become extremely slow, and you have no idea why.
And suppose you have two tech-savvy friends. Peter has a computer science degree. He is a generous person who gives time to hanging out with others, thoughtful gifts at birthdays and holidays, and even money when people in his circles go through hard times.
Naomi, on the other hand, tends to be stingy with her time, wealth, and expertise. She too has a computer science degree and a good job with a tech company, but even with family and friends she gets annoyed when others ask her for free advice concerning technology.
Since you have a sluggish computer and lots of bills at the moment, the thought of calling the manufacturer and paying for support is your last option. Which friend will you call first? Peter or Naomi?
Hmmm. That is not a hard question, is it. You call the person who is happy to hear from you and wants to help, not the person who resents your question.
This situation illustrates why our faith gets stronger when we understand and deep-down believe that God is gracious.
Moses’s bold request
Scripture indeed teaches that God is gracious. In fact it is one of the first things God would tell you about himself if you met him for the first time and asked him to describe himself. I say that because of one important conversation Moses had with the Lord.
It happened on Mount Sinai shortly after God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. God had already revealed more about himself to Moses than any person who had ever lived, but because God is the most interesting, loving, and wonderful person in the universe Moses wanted more.
So he came right out and asked for it. “Show me your glory,” Moses said.
God replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’” (Exodus 33:18–19, ESV)
What happened next is extremely important for those who want to be established in faith by being a person who accurately knows God. That is because God himself tells Moses precisely who he is and what he is like. In other words, this is not a public opinion survey about God’s nature. This is not you asking a good friend what she thinks God is like. This is not a pontificating pundit on a talk show. Rather this is God himself saying, This is who I am. Therefore this is what God wants us to know and rely on.
God’s self-description
Then, “The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious….’” (Exodus 34:5–6)
God’s self-description goes on for several more lines, but I want to stop and call your attention to the second quality he names. He says he is “gracious.”
To be gracious is to be like Peter, the tech-savvy friend in the opening illustration. To be gracious is to be generous with time, money, and affection. It is to be favorably disposed toward others. To be gracious is to welcome and invite others into your presence. A gracious person enjoys helping others and therefore is not annoyed when others entreat his assistance. He is warm and hospitable.
When God does not seem gracious
To think this way about God may be difficult because most of the Bible narrates his dealings with humans who are acting badly. When people sin, God, being perfectly good and just and righteous, responds in opposition and judgment. He abhors evil with a fury that no human except Jesus can fully comprehend. As a result, much of the Old Testament especially narrates God’s acting and speaking in ways that can make a reader think he is not gracious. But by no means is that always the case in the Old Testament, for it is filled with glorious displays of his gracious heart.
Likewise in the New Testament, where his gracious ways are easily seen in Jesus. Jesus said that he is just like the Father. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus told his disciples. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” So if you think Jesus is gracious, then you can be sure that the Father is equally gracious.
When God finally recreates the heavens and the earth and removes all evil from humanity, then we will truly see how gracious God is, for there will be nothing to provoke him to wrath.
The gracious redeemer
But even now, even in this age of so much evil, God makes known his gracious heart, for “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20).
It was the gracious heart of God that caused him to send his beloved Son to earth and become a man that he could die for our sins. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).
To Moses God said he was gracious; to the world God showed he was gracious through the redemption that is in his beloved Son.
Our prayers and God’s gracious heart
What all this means to us who want to be established in faith is twofold.
1. Because God is gracious, he welcomes us into his presence to pray about every care and concern
He does not resent our entreaties; rather, he invites them.
1 Peter 5:6–7 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”
2. Because God is gracious, his default disposition is to answer our prayers of faith
Jesus said, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).
Hebrews 13:6 says, “We can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper….’”
Takeaway: Our faith, our prayers and God’s gracious heart
When you understand the generous favor of God’s gracious heart, you will pray with much greater faith.
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)
Faith grows when you believe in the power of prayer and faith.
I once heard someone criticize a Bible teacher for “having faith in faith.” In other words, the critic concluded that the teacher in effect had confidence in his faith apart from God. Perhaps the critic felt the teacher was even exalting faith above God, that to get what one wants, God’s will or involvement are not an issue, that all one needs is to have strong faith and use it in certain ways.
Well, there certainly are ways to abuse the teaching of faith, but believing that prayer and faith are powerful is not one of them. Scripture affirms it explicitly. James 5:16 says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (ESV).
The power of prayer
God says this because he wants us to believe it. It helps your faith when you believe prayer is powerful. It helps your faith not only to know God ultimately is powerful, but also that because of his power prayer secondarily is powerful. The power of prayer is a derived power, but it is definitely powerful.
Peter prayed over the corpse of Dorcas, and she returned to life.
After three years of famine in Israel, Elijah bowed to the ground and prayed atop Mt. Carmel, and a thunderstorm resulted.
When Daniel prayed for understanding, God sent an angel.
The power of faith
Faith also is powerful.
Jesus said, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him” (Mark 11:22–24, ESV).
Similarly, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).
So Jesus wants us to believe in the power of faith. Speaking figuratively, he says it is so powerful it can move mountains. It can accomplish huge things.
By faith the teenager David slew the giant Goliath.
By faith Joshua caused the sun and moon to stand still in the sky so Israel could finish the defeat of an enemy in battle.
And by faith Moses pointed his staff toward the Red Sea, and it parted.
The power of prayer and faith is secondary
So it is not wrong to make much of the power of faith and prayer if we acknowledge God as the ultimate source of their power.
For nothing happens apart from him. “From him and through him and to him are all things,” including all answers to faith and prayer (Romans 11:36). Methods cannot accomplish anything apart from God.
When we recognize the power of our prayers and faith to move mountains, we are like David, who trusted in God to give him victory over Goliath but also chose his weapons carefully. Saul tried to help David by giving him his armor and weapons. David tried them out and realized they would not help him because he had no training or experience with them. Instead he stayed with the weapons in which he had confidence and experience: his sling and staff.
He ran confidently toward Goliath declaring his faith in God and swirling the sling he had used powerfully in the past to drive predators from his sheep. He knew what that sling could do with God’s help.
We likewise must believe in the power of prayer and faith and what they can accomplish through God.
Two obstacles to faith
The greatest obstacles in Western culture to believing this are a naturalistic worldview and a cessationist theology.
Naturalism believes matter is all that exists, that science can explain everything apart from the existence of God, and that miracles are impossible. The Bible rejects that notion from cover to cover. But even those who believe in God can struggle to escape the effects of a non-supernatural worldview. To do so, they must saturate themselves in Scripture, believe what it says, and recognize the effects of naturalism in their own belief system and expectations.
Cessationism is the belief that the supernatural works narrated in abundance in the four Gospels and the Book of Acts ended when the last of the apostles died. Christians who have cessationist beliefs will have a limited view of the power of faith and prayer.
Life principle
Prayer is powerful, and faith is powerful—through 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)
When prayers are not answered, we still have every reason for hope and faith.
Have you ever given up on prayer or faith? At a low moment have you ever said to yourself that it really does not work, that faith and prayer are a waste of time?
Sadly, that is the situation of most people in most churches. I assume that because according to surveys most Christians barely pray and most do not attend prayer meetings. Anyone who really believes what the Bible promises about prayer will want to pray because the promises are so great.
Suppose when Abraham was 98-years-old you asked him whether prayer and faith work. Had God given him a child through Sarah? No. Did he have descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore? No. Did he have possession of the Promised Land? No.
Twenty-three years of faith and what did he have to show for it? A son through Sarah’s servant. And he did not own one square inch of the Promised Land. Yet he is the archetype of faith, exhibit A, the father of all who believe—God’s chosen one.
When Prayers Are Not Answered
All this points to the critical importance of knowing that God fulfills your faith and prayers in his time, his way, and according to his will. If you do not know this, your efforts at serious, specific prayer that expects answers may end in disappointment and even disillusionment.
There are many reasons for this. We cannot control God. He is perfectly good, and so he does only what fulfills the highest good, which only he in perfect love and wisdom understands. Our ways are not his ways. He tests our faith.
So those who mean business in prayer and faith had better dress for the weather, pack for a trip, and bring an umbrella. Shallow, naïve faith will get you little but soggy shoes.
Let’s look more closely at the crucial factors affecting answers to our faith: God’s time, God’s way, and God’s will.
God’s time
In the four Gospels, God acts quickly. Jesus heals people and drives out demons on the spot. One of the frequently used words in Mark is immediately. God of course can and often does answer prayers sooner rather than later, even immediately. I pray and believe for prompt and timely answers.
But I am not disoriented if that does not happen. I adjust mentally and settle in to exercise perseverance. Luke 18:1 says Jesus “told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
For instance, by the time Abraham was 100, God had given him the son for whom he had believed, but his descendants would not take possession of the Promised Land for more than 400 years. And as for having descendants like the stars in the sky, that promise is still being fulfilled three thousand years later, for every believer in Christ is a child of Abraham.
There is an appointed time for our faith in God’s promise to be fulfilled. Referring to God’s promise to Abraham, Romans 9:9 says, “This was how the promise was stated: ‘At the appointed time I [the Lord] will return, and Sarah will have a son.’”
When you trust the promises of the eternal God, you are dealing with One for whom a “day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).
“You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36).
God’s way
Sometimes God gives us exactly what we ask. “According to your faith be it done to you.” (Matthew 9:29). Other times, however, he gives an upgrade over what we believe and expect by answering our faith in a way we never could have imagined.
The unanswered prayer of Zechariah and Elizabeth
For example, the priest Zechariah and his wife simply wanted a son. God had someone greater in mind. He wanted them to raise the one Jesus described as the greatest prophet of the Old Covenant.
For decades Elizabeth was barren. Their prayers were not answered as they expected; instead they got older and older—until one day near the end of his life Zechariah stood performing his duty in the temple when an angel suddenly appeared to him. The angel promised him an answer to his prayers; he and Elizabeth would bear a son.
Unfortunately this fulfillment of prayer was not unfolding the way Zechariah expected, and he answered the angel with words of doubt. Nevertheless, after being disciplined with muteness for months, he received John the Baptist as his son. None of this did Zechariah or Elizabeth expect as they went through their previous adult years. But God had a plan. God had an upgrade.
Unanswered prayers and assorted surprises
The next time you read the great faith chapter, Hebrews 11, notice the diversity of ways that God fulfilled the faith of his people. Rarely if ever could any of these people have predicted how God would answer.
Certainly the children of Israel who cried out year after year to God for deliverance from Pharaoh and their taskmasters in Egypt could not have imagined the ten plagues, the terrifying Passover, their plundering of the Egyptians, the parting of the Red Sea, the days of hunger followed by the giving of manna, the covenant requirements enacted at Mount Sinai, the promise of entering the Promised Land and inheriting it as their own. In fact they rejected Moses numerous times because God was working in ways they did not understand.
Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego could not have imagined their faith being fulfilled by being thrown into a fiery furnace, their walking around in the furnace with the Angel of the Lord, and their exiting the furnace with not a hair singed nor a thread of their clothing burned.
Joseph could not have imagined that his dreams would be fulfilled by his being sold into slavery in Egypt, by being falsely accused and thrown into a dungeon, by 13 years passing for him in Egypt until he was suddenly taken into the presence of Pharaoh and exalted as ruler of the land.
Naaman’s way and God’s way
And then there is Naaman, who came to Israel to see Elisha the prophet for healing of leprosy. He had faith to believe that Elisha could heal him in a certain way, but God had other plans. Elisha told him to dip seven times in the Jordan, and he would be healed.
“But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, ‘Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?’ So he turned and went away in a rage.”
Naaman is a picture of many people when God does not do what they expect. We want the answer our way, but God wants to answer his way. We get upset and walk away.
Fortunately for Naaman his servant persuaded him to give the Jordan River a try, and Naaman was healed as he submitted to God’s way.
We need not only to pray and believe; we also need to trust. People of faith must be people of trust in God.
God’s will
Have you ever felt that you might have more success at receiving answers to prayer if you just could say the right words or fast from food for a longer time or intercede more tearfully or pray more times a day or whatever?
Certainly there are biblical principles for answered prayer—yes, emphatically yes—and the Bible commends earnest praying and fasting. But unconsciously we may be trying to control God, and if so, we will probably be disappointed. God cannot be manipulated. He never turns over ultimate control of the world or our lives to us. While he may have mercy on us when we pray this way and grant our requests, it is not because he has been manipulated.
When we think that all we need for answered prayer is the right method, or following the right formula, we are not taking into account God’s will.
1 John 5:14 says, “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”
How Jesus prayed
Jesus famously prayed in the Garden, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
Although it is possible to pray like this when we have no faith, or when we are afraid to hope lest we be disappointed, that was certainly not the case with Jesus.
What he does in these words is acknowledge God’s ultimate control and his submission to it. It is similar to stating one’s travel plans but adding, “The Lord willing.” (See James 4:13–16). Jesus earnestly prays, but he never gets frustrated with his God or tries to lord it over him. He pours out his soul to try to influence his Father, but never acts as though he knows better how the Father in the end should do things. Jesus never prays in a way that suggests God had better do what he asks, or else…. He displays throughout that he trusts the will of God.
“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7).
Jesus could have pointed to many promises of the Old Testament that supported his request to be delivered from going to the cross, such as Psalms 91 and 121 and dozens more. But God’s will was for Jesus to fulfill many other Scriptures, especially Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and all the Old Testament sacrificial system in which an animal died as a substitute for the sinner.
The nature of a promise
Granted, this gets complicated. When is a promise a promise, and when is it not? When is what seems to be a promise more like a general principle of the way God often works, but not an ironclad way that he always works in every situation for someone who has faith? (See Hebrews 11, especially verses 35–40.)
I do not have a simple answer, but I choose to take a simple approach. If God’s Word says he does such and such, and I need him to do that, I am going to pray for it and believe it. If God’s will turns out to be otherwise and my life fulfills other Scriptures, I will submit to that and glorify God. And if my heart is right, my faith and trust will not suffer for it.
If our faith crumbles when prayers are not answered
If our relationship with God suffers because he has not answered our faith in the way we want, it shows we do not have the right attitude. It is possible we unwittingly have been trying to manipulate God, insisting that he do things our way, in effect acting as though we are God, that we know better how to run the universe.
We may even resemble the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel who cried out and cut themselves to try to get Baal to burn the sacrifice (1 Kings 18). Or we may be like the mistaken Gentiles in Jesus’s teaching who sought techniques to get prayers answered: “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7).
Again, we need not only to believe God’s words, but also to trust his will and remember our place.
Takeaway
When prayers are not answered, we still have every reason for hope and faith, for God fulfills prayers of faith in his time, his way, and according to his will. God always remains God.
I believe that those who persist in faith will not ultimately be disappointed. Somehow in this age or the age to come, God will reward enduring faith.
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)
Does God hear us? How can we be sure our prayers are more than smoke in the wind?
A few weeks ago I sold my used car to CarMax. From beginning to end, as we discussed the deal I paid close attention to everything the representatives said and every written document. What was I promising to them, and what were they promising to me? Eventually I signed the papers, and they gave me a check. All based on words.
In human relations, words are decisive. In our relations with God, words also are decisive. We pay close attention to what God promises, and God pays close attention to what we ask and say.
When you utter a prayer, a monumental, earth-shaking thing has happened. A human being has asked Almighty God to do something, this God who rules all things has heard it, and this One who is faithful and true will certainly act according to his promises and conditions. Large or small, miraculous or seemingly mundane, something changes because you uttered a prayer and met certain conditions. Whether your prayer moves a nation or comforts a grief-stricken widow, the King of the universe acts because of your words.
God hears
When you become convinced of this truth, it will transform your prayer life. How normal it is to feel as though our words in prayer are like smoke—immaterial, insubstantial, temporary. It seems they dissipate and disappear. We cannot see our words, and we cannot see God. We can feel we are just talking to ourselves or that God pays little attention to them. And so, our words seem less consequential than they actually are.
But the truth is, our words in prayer are like the signed contract of a car sale, or like the switches on a railroad track that send a rumbling, earth-shaking, 200-ton locomotive and its train of many cars rolling down one track instead of another. This is the significance of words spoken to God. Every time you pray, it is momentous. Every word you utter to God matters.
Here are seven Scriptural illustrations of the crucial truth that God pays perfect attention to your every word and prayer, and works in your life according to them.
Psalm 139:1–4
In Psalm 139:1–4 David writes, “O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.” (ESV)
God knows everything, everything in the past, present, and future. He knows every single word you spoke and thought you had when you were a child, when you were 20, or anytime else in your life. Your life is an open book to him, and every word is written down. In fact, so great is his knowledge of your words, he knows them “altogether” even before you speak them!
David says God is searching everything about you and knows it all. He is paying attention. That certainly includes your prayers.
Daniel 10:12
As the prophet Daniel sought the Lord earnestly for three weeks regarding the situation of the nation of Israel, Daniel 10 recounts that an angel appeared to him. The angel tells Daniel, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words” (Daniel 10:12).
Why did the angel come to Daniel? “I have come because of your words.”
Was God listening? “Your words have been heard.”
Mark 7:25–29
Mark 7 says Jesus went into the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon, and “Immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ And he said to her, ‘For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.’” (Mark 7:25–29)
What changed? Why did Jesus first refuse to act but then change his mind? “For this statement.” If she had not said what she said, Jesus would not have done what he did. In the kingdom of heaven, words are decisive.
Note that her first requests were not decisive in causing Jesus to act, but her final answer was.
Matthew 9:27–30
Traveling elsewhere, Jesus encountered a pair of blind men. The “two blind men followed him, crying aloud, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David.’ Then he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then he touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened.”
Jesus did not immediately heal these two men as they pleaded for mercy. One of the conditions of answered prayer is faith, and Jesus wanted to establish that these men had it. So he kept walking and eventually entered a house. The blind men persistently followed him down the road and entered the house behind him. There he examined them with a simple, direct question: Do you believe?
Their two-word answer was decisive: “Yes, Lord.” Those words were enough for Jesus. Their previous cries for mercy did not bring the healing, but these two words were telling. These two words carried the day, because their words were words of faith, “He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened.”
Just a couple of words—faith words—and their lives were changed.
Matthew 8:5–10, 13
On still another occasion when Jesus “had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.’ And he said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, “Go,” and he goes, and to another, “Come,” and he comes, and to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. … And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.”
This story is all about one’s confidence in the decisive nature of words. The centurion recognizes the decisive power of Jesus’s words, but he also displays his confidence in the decisive nature of his own words, not only with the soldiers under his command but also with his request of Jesus. He fully believed Jesus would have regard for his petition.
And Jesus did pay close attention to everything the centurion said. Jesus heard enough to know the centurion had faith. Words display faith. As Jesus said elsewhere, “The mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart” (Matthew 12:34). This is one reason our words are crucially important. They reveal faith or doubt. “And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’”
Genesis 18:22–33
Before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he allowed Abraham to intercede with him on behalf of their righteous residents. In the well-known account, Abraham requests that God would spare the city for the sake of 50 righteous people.
“And the LORD said, ‘If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’” (Genesis 18:26)
Notice that God answers Abraham with precisely the number requested: 50. And with each of the requests that follow, God agrees to the precise number stated by Abraham: 45, 40, 30, 20, and 10. We do not know how low God would have gone if Abraham had continued. But the point is, God showed his intention to act based precisely on a man’s words.
When Abraham began this negotiation and first asked for the number 50, God could have skipped the negotiations and said he would not only spare the city for the sake of 50, but for 10. Instead we see God following the principle that he pays perfect attention to our every word and prayer, and in accordance with them works in our lives.
Numbers 30:2–15
We conclude with what the Bible says about making vows to God. Notice in the following passage their binding nature.
Numbers 30:2–5 says, “If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. If a woman vows a vow to the LORD and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth, and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the LORD will forgive her, because her father opposed her.”
Making a vow is like signing a mortgage. A person binds and obligates himself or herself to pay the debt. God pays attention to a human vow; to break that promise is to sin against him.
Takeaway
God pays perfect attention to my every word and prayer, and in accordance with them works in my life.
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)
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)
When you are established in faith, you can truly know God and his ways.
In the Fall of 2012 I was working full-time for a publisher and part-time as pastor of the church I still serve. One day my supervisor called me to his office and informed me that the company was laying off a large segment of its work force due to financial deficits and that I was one of those losing his job.
I had never experienced that before. You hear stories of people losing jobs and being devastated, and you wonder what you would do if it happened to you. As my supervisor explained the process of ending my employment and as I walked back to my office, my thoughts and emotional reaction surprised me. Although suddenly confronted with a long list of uncertainties and losses, my heart was calm. I was disappointed, sure, but not afraid. I felt confident that God was in charge, that he would provide for me and my wife, and that we were beginning an exciting new chapter.
Certainly I have not always been so assured. I recall a decade prior to this layoff driving for several hours with a friend to a meeting, and as the conversation moved to plans for the future, I admitted to my sense of financial insecurity. In other words, I was afraid and told him so. I did not see how I would have enough money for old age. For years I lived with foreboding about this.
Why? Because I did not adequately know God. Yes, I was a regenerated Christian, a devoted follower of Christ, a pastor. I knew God in the sense that I was born again and knew the Bible well and understood many truths about God accurately. But I did not know him well enough to trust what he repeatedly promised in Scripture about providing for my needs.
Faith and knowledge
To the extent that we do not really believe what the Scripture says, we do not know him. True knowledge of God depends on faith. One can articulate the most intricate aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity yet find it difficult to joyfully say, “God loves me.”
This is why the subject of faith is so important for Christians who want to know God better. Our knowledge of God cannot exceed our faith. The quest to know God is far more about increasing faith than about adding theological information and answering our questions.
What Jesus expected
As you read the Gospels, have you ever noticed what Jesus repeatedly called attention to as he engaged with his disciples and strangers? He certainly talked a lot about love, obedience, righteousness, and truth. Nevertheless, though I have not tallied the occurrences, it seems to me he talked most about faith and unbelief. He regularly either commended people for their faith or admonished them for doubt. He expected people to have what we would classify as enormous faith. And he marveled when his disciples were afraid of drowning in a momentous tempest. He admonished them when they worried about going hungry in the desert although they had just two loaves of bread and a couple of fish and a crowd of 5,000 to feed. He bypassed others who doubted he could heal the sick and demon-afflicted.
Moreover, he taught things about faith that are, well, unbelievable. He said true believers would with a word be able to move mountains, perform miracles, replant trees in the sea, and receive whatever they ask. Not only can God do amazing things, so can we.
God’s will
This stretches one’s faith to the breaking point. Some Christians respond by reaching for that level of faith, though it is by no means easy (that is, unless you become as a child [Mark 10:15]) and it raises many questions. Others do not know what to do with these teachings. They might explain them away, regarding Christians who pursue such faith as unwise or unhinged, asking for trouble and disillusionment. Or they might accept the teachings, but shake their heads and regard them as personally unattainable. Some might say these teachings of Jesus are for those who have the special gift of faith.
Based on my reading of the Gospels, I do not think Jesus would say that. He expected big faith from everyone. Moreover, to limit strong faith to a spiritual elite is to relegate most Christians to a stunted knowledge of God, as described above, and the fear, insecurity, instability, weakness, and defeat that comes with it.
No, Jesus said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). That is an imperative. Thus that is his will.
Scripture warns against being double-minded, saying to one who asks for wisdom, “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” (James 1:6–8, ESV).
Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
Romans 14:23 says, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”
Isaiah 7:9 says, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all” (NIV). The RSV says, “If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.”
The trouble with accepting unbelief
We cannot experience the Christian life described in the Bible without faith in what God says. So the idea that we should tolerate in ourselves an unbelief of anything God says in his Word is simply wrong. We must not be satisfied with anything less than believing all he says. Unbelief insults God, implying that he is not truthful, cannot be trusted, and is not Almighty. Being content with unbelief requires resisting Jesus, who is the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
Therefore we must not rationalize and excuse our own unbelief. Unbelief will creep and grow. It is Satan’s foot in the door. It is an invitation to the unmanageable power of fear and the ruin that accompanies it.
Established in faith
So we need to be established in faith.
To establish means to put on a firm basis, to make stable or permanent.
I live on the 20th floor of a high-rise. I have watched many high-rises built around us. Before the first floor is built, I have seen dozens of holes drilled deep in the soil and then filled with concrete. I have seen a quarter million tons of concrete, steel, and glass go into a tower one floor at a time. A high-rise is as established as a man-made building can be. It is heavy and has a big footprint. It is anchored to the ground with deep underground columns. A puff of wind will not knock it over, nor will a normal trembling in the earth crack it to pieces.
To establish something is to position it to endure. It is in balance, not teetering. It is grounded, not suspended in midair. It has a foundation. It is built on rock, not sand. It is consistent, not wavering. It is single-minded, not double-minded.
The 20 truths this series highlights will bring you to this place of established faith. Believing these 20 truths will make you an immovable, spiritual rock. And most importantly, you will know God as he is. You will know him in your experience, not just intellectually. And your Christian life will work the way the Bible describes.
How the Christian life works
The Bible describes the life of a Christian as one marked by peace and joy even in the midst of conflict; by strength abounding even in our weaknesses; by answered prayer even though for a long time we walk by faith and not by sight.
The Christian life does not work as the Bible describes without faith, without faith in everything the Bible promises, without faith in the worldview the Bible describes—a worldview in which God is almighty and responsive to the prayers of those who believe. That is not the worldview of most people in educated, Western cultures, for whom the idea of a God who can do miracles is inconceivable. If you want to know and experience God, you must abandon that worldview and fully adopt what the Bible says about God and his ways with us.
Each of these 20 truths plays a crucial role in the superstructure of established faith, so do not miss a week. You will learn to call these truths to mind before you pray and then pray with confidence. When you sense fear and unbelief slipping into your soul, you will call these truths to mind, and they will reestablish you in immovable confidence. You will learn to live all day, every day, established in faith—and thus knowing God better than ever before.
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)
What is different when we inquire of God at night?
Yesterday morning I awoke around 2:30 and began thinking. I thought about things that regularly occupy my mind: the ministry of our church and what I am preaching and writing. My thoughts were so clear and focused that I gave up on sleep and prayed and thought productively until 4:30 and then got out of bed and went to my computer to record my thoughts and think more. I outlined this post.
It is not unusual for me to do some of my best thinking in the middle of the night, as well as some of my worst. I learned decades ago that fear is worst in the middle of the night. Psalm 91:5 refers to “the terror of the night.” Whether positive or negative, then, something about our mind and spirit in the deep of night is more intense, clear, and focused.
Thoughts of a different quality
During the night our human spirit seems to be more awake, active, even dominant as the mysterious world of our dreams unfolds. But I do not think such spiritual sensitivity is simply a matter of dreaming. Rather, I think our spiritual perceptions can be stronger at that time.
God spoke to David during the night. David said, “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me” (Psalm 16:7, ESV). The NASB20 translates that, “Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.” So the Hebrew adverb ’aph can be translated “also” as well as “indeed.”
The example of Jesus
Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord, namely Jesus, experienced the same thing. Isaiah 50:4–5 says, “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward” (ESV). So the Father spoke to Jesus early in the morning.
Mark also records that. “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, [Jesus] departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, ‘Everyone is looking for you.’ And he said to them, ‘Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out’” (Mark 1:35–38). It appears that Jesus heard from the Father during that time of prayer that he was supposed to travel to preach elsewhere.
Choosing the Twelve
In Luke’s Gospel, the implication is unavoidable that God told Jesus whom to select as his twelve disciples during the deep of night.
Luke 6:12–13 says, “In these days [Jesus] went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles.”
Therefore the deep of night, or early morning, can be especially productive times to obtain the wisdom we seek.
All night is a long time
Long periods of prayer can also help. The verse above says Jesus prayed all night, which could mean I guess six to ten hours. If Jesus was focused most of that time on the identity of the twelve, that is a long time to receive just twelve names. With efficient communication, God could have voiced those names in less than a minute. But it lasted many hours.
By our measures God can be slow and long. When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, he had to wait seven days before he could actually enter the cloud of glory. Exodus 24:15–16 says, “Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.”
It could be that it will require an extended time of prayer for you to receive the wisdom you seek.
Takeaway
The problem: We are busy and distracted in a normal day, and that makes it hard to get clarity, connection, and focus with God. We may fail to give God our undivided attention for a long enough time for him to do all he desires in us as he imparts wisdom. Moreover, our culture and technology condition us to want everything instantly.
The solution: To obtain the wisdom we need, sometimes we need to inquire of God deep into the night or in the dark of early morning.
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)
