Have you ever bought something on an online store website before? Sometimes some of the things that we need we just are not able to get in an actual physical store, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes certain car parts may be special order and can only be found in a special manufacturer hundreds or thousands of miles away across the country. One time a while back I ordered some fruit trees and other plants from a greenhouse states away from where we lived, so I went onto the greenhouse website and placed an order, which then a couple of weeks later arrived at my door.
But whatever online store that you may order from, whenever you press that button to confirm the purchase, what you essentially are doing is making a request, or petition, for something. You are asking for a product. It certainly isn’t right there within arms length for you to grab yourself, but you are asking for it to be sent to you. You believe that one day soon you will receive what you requested.
And this is very similar to asking things from the Lord in our prayers. Sometimes in our lives we just don’t have certain things. We may need His assistance in an area of our lives, so we lift up a prayer to Him, humbly beseeching Jesus to help us. We don’t have the things that we prayed for at that moment of prayer, but we can know that, just like when we place an order online on a website, we will one day receive what we petitioned of Him. It just takes faith.
1 John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
To be confident in something means to be filled with conviction, and assured of an outcome. You may strike a match and then hold it underneath a piece of paper. When you place that match close enough, what is going to happen? The paper will catch fire. You haven’t even seen it happen yet, but you are confident that as soon as that flame touches the paper it will all start to burn.
We can be confident in our prayers to the Lord that He hears them, and have comfort in knowing that, if it is according to His will, He will grant us our prayers. Obviously the Lord Jesus will not grant the prayers of the wicked, but when we walk in the truth and do the will of God we can rest assured that we will receive what we ask of Him.
Matthew 7:7-11 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
We need to simply ask and believe God’s promise to us. When He says He will do something, He will do it. When God commanded the people to walk around the walls of Jericho, and the walls would fall down, the people did that, believing His word, and you know what happened? It came to pass. Just look at what happened when Elias prayed to the Lord.
James 5:17-18 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
Three and a half years! That’s how long it did not rain, and he prayed again and the skies opened up and the rain came down. That is the power of prayer. But it takes faith. We must believe.
So, when you pray, do you believe? Do you have faith when you ask of God? Prayer is a powerful, powerful thing, when it is mixed with faith!
In Christ
Andrew
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