Wrong number or bad connection?
John 14:12-13 (NLT)"The truth is, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father. Yes, ask anything in my name, and I will do it!
As the head pastor of a ministry that is running an international prayer sub-ministry I get the privilege of reading all the incoming prayers and praying over them. More and more I notice a sad trend. Christians that feel that their prayers are not being answered. They feel that all the problems in their life can only be explained by God not listening to them. I am sure that they feel each time they pray they hear "sorry the God you are trying to reach is temporally out of service, or the God you are trying to reach is busy please try again later!" My friends I am here to tell you HE IS NOT! I received one prayer request, just the other day, where the individual said "It's like going up to guy who's Dad is a dead beat dad and asking him, "Do you have a personal relationship with your father?". He would respond, "I wrote him, but he didn't write back. I went to visit him, but he didn't answer. I cried and begged him for help, but he ignored me". Ouch!! Do you see where I am coming from? How can we expect our Lord to answer our prayers when this is our attitude? My God is not a Santa Clause God. He is not at my command! The one thing I hate, yes, HATE!!!! is the "new" doctrines being spewed from many pulpits. They take a Holy and righteous God and try to bring Him down to our level. They even go so far and say that God has no right to the earth and we must invite Him in. Kenny Copeland is responsible for that one! A doctrine straight from the pits of HELL! Hello! Who created this mess we live in called earth. God DID, we just messed it up. In the next few paragraphs I want to share what I call a kingdom key. These are special insights that my Lord and Savior has given this old pastor over the years.
The Lord showed me many years ago that if something was an absolute truth then it could be found in His word 3 times. I call it "God's Threes". In the Gospel of John Jesus said three times "God's Threes" "ask and receive" So lets take a look at each instance. John 14:12-13 (NLT)"The truth is, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father. Yes, ask anything in my name, and I will do it! The KEY is he who believes in Jesus will, do greater things and works and ask anything in Jesus' name and He will do it. Why because Jesus went to the Father and so that the Father can be glorified through Jesus. So the KEY here is that if you want to do greater things and have your prayers answered you must believe in Jesus and whatever we ask must Glorify God. "Ouch, you mean pastor Jay I cannot lay hands on a BMW and name it and claim it." Not unless you can show me how having that BMW will glorify God. The Greek here for believe means to have faith, to trust, to be convinced. In other words if you do not have perfect trust in Jesus to answer your prayers and they will not glorify the Lord and His Father then I would not expect an answer.
In John 15:7-8 (NLT) 7But if you stay joined to me and my words remain in you, you may ask any request you like, and it will be granted! 8My true disciples produce much fruit. This brings great glory to my Father. Now you have to notice this is a two way street. We must abide in Jesus and Jesus' words must abide in us. The Greek here means to stay with to be present with or dwell with. In other words who do you serve in this world Jesus or the world. When there comes a chance to tell the world what your wonderful savior has done for you do you? Or do you figure someone else will. Are you openly in love with Jesus or do you hide your Christianity in fear of what someone may think. Jesus said it " if you deny me before man I will deny you before heaven!" Have you denied Jesus? If you have and have never repented how can you expect Him to answer your prayers? The second part is just as hard. My words must abide in you. Ok! Here is WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD! We got a prayer request from a young woman who claimed to love Jesus but, could not understand why her life was full of problems. It turned out she was pregnant by a man whom she was living with but not married to. Hum! does not sound like what the word of God says. Wife's are you submitted to your husbands? Husbands do you love your wife as Jesus loved the church? Are you living the word of God? Are you a living epistle to the world of God's word? Are you Holy as He is Holy? Are you living the word of God? Is it dwelling in your life to the point the world sees it? Because if not how can you expect the Lord to answer your prayers when you do not even know what His word says? See the common thread here "8My true disciples produce much fruit. This brings great glory to my Father." Are your prayers centered on you or on bringing glory to Jesus and His Father?
In John 16:23 (KJV) 23And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. The "in that day" that Jesus is speaking of is after He has been crucified, buried, resurrected and ascended to the Father in Heaven. In other words today, my friends. So Jesus says that it is an absolute truth that today we will ask whatever of the Father and he will give it to us. So here again is the KEY; John 16:26-27 (NLT) Then you will ask in my name. I'm not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God. So here again is the key " for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God. " Do you truly believe this? Jesus said it the Father will love you and answer your prayers because you believe and love Jesus. But, it goes deeper than that. It is all about relationship. Do you have relationship with the Son of God? Not a relationship with your church or religion but Jesus. Lets go back to our original comment "It's like going up to guy who's Dad is a dead beat dad and asking him, "Do you have a personal relationship with your father?". He would respond, "I wrote him, but he didn't write back. I went to visit him, but he didn't answer. I cried and begged him for help, but he ignored me". What is wrong with this picture? Before we even get started it is a "dead beat dad." It is not the man who gave me life, it is not the one who helped bring me into this world. It is the man who abandoned me and did not care for me because he owed me a living. Do you see in a personal relationship we are thankful for what we have been given no matter how great or how small. Just like the personal relationship with Jesus. If you are rich or poor. If your life is easy or hard. If your loved by all or hated. It does not matter because you have already been given more than you deserve. If you are a Christian you have been given the gift of eternal life. Jesus already loved you so much He died a horrible death on the cross for you. In this world whether your dad takes care of you or not; he helped bring you into this world and gave you a chance to make something of yourself.
You want to see results in your life and your prayers then you need to do the following three things. First, you must believe that your Lord and Savior loves you enough to hear your prayers and answer then. James 1:6-7(NLT) But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. A few years ago I was not seeing prayers being answered. It was not because I was not trying to be in God's will. It was not because my life did not reflect Jesus. It was because of a tiny seed of doubt. I was asking WHY? and the still small voice said as plain as day that I have a small seed of doubt in my heart. I was told to ask first the Lord to remove that and trust Him 100%. I did and I started to see results to my prayer life. If you have that seed of doubt then ask the Lord to remove it.
Second, your prayers and GET THIS, your life must glorify the Lord and His father. Your prayers should help you bear fruit for the Kingdom of heaven not just make your life better on earth. Be honest, I mean take a real look, a reality check if I might say. Look at all the purveyors' of the blab and grab it gospel. Who is getting rich? They are, they are being blessed by everyone who follows blindly the sow your seed to meet their need gospel.
Third and most important, is that the word of God must abide in your heart and you must abide with Jesus. How can you expect to have your prayers answered and your life blessed if you do not even know what the word of God says? I will leave you with this true story. A few years ago our niece was born with a heart defect. No one knew about it until at six months old the doctors were concerned about her growth rate. They discovered that she had a hole in her heart and that one of the main arteries was connected to the wrong side of her heart. In other words no matter how hard the heart would pump it could never get enough oxygen to her body to function properly. The doctors all agreed that she needed immediate surgery but that she was too frail and needed to be fattened (strengthened) up to even have a chance of surviving. They said that even if the operation was successful she may never have a good life and would always need to be on heart meds. Well that was not good enough for Mary and I. We started a fast and prayer time for a complete healing. It was as if our Lord said how much is this worth to you? As always God's timing is perfect. Just a few days before He showed us how much He enjoyed having us pray back His scriptures to Him. I printed out every scripture on healing I could find. I believe I still have them. We fasted and prayed God's word back to Him for 17 days. We spent hours in the prayer chapel on our faces. On the night of the 17th day, 3 days before the operation. The Lord spoke to Mary as clear as day "enough I have heard you it is done!" Mary felt a complete release and we knew God had spoken. The operation should have taken a minimum of 6 hours. In under 2 hours our little niece was back in her room. For those who know a little about medicine that is just enough time to crack a chest and put it back together. Our little niece is now 6 years old and in perfect health. No meds and every time the Doctor who operated on her sees her he calls her his little miracle child.
This did not have anything special to do with us. We believed, we wanted God to receive all the Glory and honor, we were living in the Will of God for our lives and we had that personal relationship with Jesus and His words were hidden in our hearts. If you want your prayers to be answered then get back to the basics of God's word.
God Bless
Pastor A. J.
