November 10, 2019
All Scripture from NIV unless otherwise documented.
“13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14: 13 – 14.
“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” How many of you have a difficult time accepting this promise from Jesus? Anything? Really? I can ask for anything in Jesus name and He will do it in order to bring glory to the Father? I don’t know about you but I’m not buying it, at least not carte blanche.
For example, if I hate someone and want to see something bad happen to them, do you think I could ask Jesus to bring harm on someone I don’t like, and that He will do that in order to glorify God? I don’t think so.
In chapters 4 – 8, Torrey mentions several things that are important concerning receiving a “positive” answer when you pray, which I am calling, the Mechanics of Prayer for lack of a better name. They are, “Praying in the name of Jesus, praying in the will of God, praying in the Spirit, praying with faith, praying with determination, abiding in Christ, letting Christ abide in you and praying with thanksgiving. If you want to have confidence in your requests to God, then consider these eight mechanics of prayer.
The first one is to pray in the name of Jesus, or to pray in the name of Christ. This is more than simply praying and closing your prayer with the words, “in Jesus name”. To pray in the name of Christ, according to Torrey, is to approach God on the “ground of Christ’s merit” and not on the grounds of your own merit. We have no claim on God outside of that which we have in the name of Jesus. It is by His merit, it is by His love, it is by His grace, it is by His sacrifice that we are able to approach God. If I go to God in prayer based on my own merit, I have nothing to offer. I’m not good enough, I’m not righteous on my own, and I can’t do enough good to deserve God’s favor. But when I approach God in Jesus name, and by the merit of what He has done through His death and resurrection, then I can go before God with confidence. I guess the question we have to ask ourselves is, are we approaching Jesus based on what He has done, or do we sometimes go to God in prayer with the idea that, I’ve been good, I deserve this, maybe God will say yes because of what I have done or how I have been living, etc.
When we ask something in Jesus name, we need to keep in mind that according to Christ’s words here, we must ask for something that He can say yes to that will bring glory to the Father. Like my example before, He isn’t going to say yes to things that we ask of Him that would bring dishonor, disgrace, or shame to His Father. If you want to know that your prayer will be answered with a yes, then ask those things in Jesus name that will bring glory to the Father.
Next we must pray and ask “according to His will. 1 John 5: 14 – 15 says: “14This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him.” This is very similar to John 14 in that it tells us that we can know or have confidence that God will respond by giving us what we ask for. What condition do we find in this passage? That we pray “according to His will.” How can we know what God’s will is? I don’t know about you, but God doesn’t speak to me and tell me what His will is in every situation that comes up in my life or in the lives of those I am asked to pray for. So how can I know if I am praying according to His will? Well, you might not be able to in all situations, but there are plenty of times that you can pray and know that it is within the will of God. How? First by studying God’s word. There are many things revealed in God’s word that He promises to those who follow Him. The example that Torrey gave was from James 1:5 which states: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” Here it is plainly stated that if you lack wisdom, ask God and He will give it generously.
There is a catch though, even to that promise. You must pray without doubting. God promises to give wisdom when you ask, but if you doubt that promise, then you should not expect to receive anything from God. I believe that the same is true concerning other promises that God makes in His word, such as, Philippians 4 which says, don’t worry but pray and you will receive the peace that passes all understanding and John 11 which tells us that anyone who believes in Him will live, even after he has died.
Torrey also wrote that “another way in which we may know the will of God, is, by the teaching of His Holy Spirit. There are many things that we need from God that are not covered by any specific promise, but we are not left in ignorance of the will of God even then.” And then he cites for example, Romans 8: 26 – 27 which reads: “26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
If you can’t find a promise in God’s Word, and you don’t know what the will of God is, then commit your request to the Holy Spirit and let Him intercede with God on your behalf. Let Him decipher whether what you are asking is according to God’s will or not and let Him realign your prayer so that it may be in God’s will. You can then have confidence that God will answer, not necessarily in accordance with what you are asking, but in accordance with His will.
Along with that Torrey says that the whole secret of prayer is found in three words, “in the Spirit.” Ephesians 6: 18 says “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.”
As I said last week, when we pray, we need to come into the presence of God before we pray. One way we are to do that is to look to God to send His Spirit to teach us how to pray. We are to wait on the Holy Spirit and surrender ourselves to the Spirit, according to Torrey, and then “we shall pray aright.”
Have you ever not felt like praying when you really needed to pray? Have you ever felt that your heart was cold and distant from God? That is when we need to look to the Holy Spirit to warm our hearts and bring us near to God. Jesus promised His disciples that he wouldn’t leave them alone, but would send them another helper, an advocate who would help them, the Spirit of truth. It is when we feel distant from God that we need to trust the Holy Spirit to draw us nearer to Him. As I said in the previous point, when we pray in the Spirit, when we allow Him to intercede on our behalf, when we allow the Spirit to take our requests and align them with the will of God, we can trust that God will answer our prayers.
Another mechanic of prayer is to pray with faith. Mark 11: 24 says “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” How do we find this kind of faith in our lives? You can’t find it by anything that you can do on your own. You can’t just psyche yourself up into faith. You can’t wish and hope for this kind of faith. And I don’t think that you can simply claim it. Torrey said, “Trying to believe something that you want to believe is not faith.” But, believing what God says in His Word is faith. He once again goes back to knowing God’s word and the promises in it. I would add to that the daily exercise of your faith in whatever comes into your life. I’m talking about the James 1 kind of faith that considers even your trials with joy. As you exercise your faith in the little things you will begin to have the kind of faith that depends on God for the big things that come into your life. And I think you will then begin to know the kind of things that you can pray for and faithfully expect God to answer.
Do you want to have power in your prayer? Do you want to pray with confidence? Then consider these four mechanics of prayer, and the ones that I will be sharing with you next week, including “praying with determination, abiding in Christ, letting Christ abide in you and praying with thanksgiving.” I hope you will be back to hear more about prayer, but if you can’t be, check it out on Facebook Live.