If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us

“If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14, NIV)

   One of the favourite verses of the Bible for every Christian is Matthews 7:7. That verse says, “Ask and it will be given to you” (NIV). That, naturally, is a most comforting and encouraging promise. But I’ve discovered that it’s the most misunderstood verse. Most Christians take it verbally and literally and expect to receive everything they ask for and finally end up in disappointment. All of us who are honest can testify that we have more unanswered prayers than the answered ones.

   We’ve asked God for many things and we’ve received positive answers on some occasions but, most of the time our prayers remained unanswered. The verse, “Ask and it will be given to you” actually means, “You’ll not be given whatever you ask for”. To receive anything from God, we must know His will in the first place. In order to be successful in prayer we must know the Will of God and His Mind. If we are tuned to the Mind of God, we’ll never ask anything contrary to His Will. It is futile to expect Matthews 7:7 to be fulfilled in our lives without first being tuned to the Mind of God.

   This is the goal of our life. We must grow and mature in our spiritual life to a stature where we will never ask for anything that is against the Will of God. The whole purpose of the prayer room is to tune our minds to perfectly agree with the Mind of God. Getting what we want may please us temporarily but that will not sanctify us.

   The disappointment in our prayer room leads us to self examination and to change our mindset. Let us not look at the prayer room as an ATM. That’s not just a place where we get what we want, but the prayer room is a place which makes us more like Christ. Let us cultivate the habit of praying alone expecting God to change us more like Christ. God bless you!