Prayer Is Not A Slot Machine!

In the last post I argued that the Bible clearly teaches that God wants to answer our prayers and yet Christians complain that their prayers are not answered. The way Jesus and the apostles John and James and Paul talked about prayer it was a sure thing.

John 16:23 And 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. 24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

1 John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

But prayer doesn't seem to be a sure thing. Why?

Because God's will is not the only factor in determining whether or not we receive the answer to prayer. We have a part to play. God's answer is conditioned on our part. Our part will either cause us to receive or keep us from receiving. God can will that we have a thing and we will still do without it if we don't meet the conditions.

Here's one way I like to think about it: Prayer is as sure a thing as gardening. As sure as you can have a beautiful garden you can receive answers to prayer. God has designed seeds, sun, soil and water in such a way that we can all have a beautiful garden. A garden filled with all manner of wonderful things, roses and tulips and orchids and walnuts and pecans and oranges and lemons, beautiful green carpets of grass, and huge, gracious trees to shade us from the sun on warm days.  

But everybody doesn't have a beautiful garden. In fact, even all the people who would really like to have a beautiful garden don't have one. Why? Because it's not God's will for them to have a beautiful garden? No! They don't have a beautiful garden because they're not doing what it takes to get a beautiful garden!

Take my garden for example. It seems like everybody in the Imperial Valley has a lemon tree. My mom's is huge. It produces so many lemons that even though she ships bag loads of big beautiful lemons home with Becky, a lot of the lemons just end up falling to the ground and rotting. I like lemons so about five years ago I ordered a really nice 2 year old dwarf lemon tree from a nursery here in California. In the five years it's been growing I've harvested exactly 2 small lemons.

Here's a picture of my lemon tree in all its glory.You can click on the image to see a larger version, but there still won't be much to see.

Remember, I'm comparing prayer to growing a garden.

If my lemon tree was a prayer some people would say, "Well, it must not be God's will for you to have lemons, Greg." or "Well Greg, God is sovereign and He knows what's best for you." or "Greg maybe God knows that your having lemons would really be bad for  you." or "Maybe God knows that if He gave you lemons you'd just get the big head and wouldn't want to go to church any more." But if a Calvinist gardener came to your house and told you, "The reason your lemon tree has not produced any lemons is because it's not God's will for you to have lemons!" you'd think he was a nut. No, if the lemon tree doesn't produce we start asking what we need to do differently in order to get lemons. And that's exactly what we need to do when our prayers aren't producing results.

Anyone who wishes can have their prayers answered, but just wishing it doesn't guarantee an answer. You have to garden that prayer just like you would garden a lemon tree, or a rose bush, or a gardenia, or an herb garden. You have a part to play. Receiving an answer to prayer is as sure as growing a beautiful garden. It's a certainty, … if you do your part. Most people don't receive answers to prayer for the same reason they don't have beautiful gardens. They're just not willing to pay the price. They prefer to think about prayer as some kind of spiritual lottery game. They're willing to put a couple quarters worth of effort into their prayer on the off chance they might hit it big and actually get an answer, but if it requires more than that, they're not interested.

(Okay, okay, okay, Greg, we get it! So what's our part?)

A number of years ago I read a small book of sermons by Charles Finney. ( Here's a brief bio of Charles Finney, courtesy of Charles Stanley's ministry.) The book was called, Power From On High, it's now available online here. In Chapter 4, Prevailing Prayer, he tells the story of how before he became a Christian he had attended a local prayer meeting. He had no religious background and wasn't even sure why he was attending the prayer meetings. He had at the same time bought his first Bible and had begun to read it.

" Seeing me so frequently in their prayer-meeting, the leader, on one occasion, asked me if I did  not wish them to pray for me. I  replied: "No." I said: "I suppose that I need to be prayed for, but your prayers are not answered.  You confess it yourselves." I then  expressed my astonishment at this fact, in view of what the Bible said about the prevalence of  prayer. Indeed, for some time my mind was much perplexed and in doubt in view of Christ's teaching on the subject of prayer and  the manifest facts before me, from  week to week, in this prayer-meeting. Was Christ a divine teacher? Did He actually teach what  the Gospels attributed to Him? Did He  mean what He said? Did prayer really avail to secure blessings from God? If so, what was I to  make of what I witnessed from week to week and month to month in that prayer meeting? Were they real Christians? Was that which I heard real prayer, in the Bible sense?  Was it such prayer as Christ had promised to answer? Here I found the solution.

I became convinced that they were under a delusion; that they did not prevail because they  had no right to prevail. They did not  comply with the conditions upon which God had promised to hear prayer. Their prayers were just  such as God had promised not to  answer. It was evident they were overlooking the fact that they were in danger of praying  themselves into skepticism in regard to the value of prayer.

I love the line, "Their prayers were just such as God had promised not to answer." Finney then proceeds to list  22  Biblical conditions or qualifications one must meet to receive answers to prayer.

I want to focus on what I believe are the most important conditions we must meet in order to receive answers to our prayers. These are the things that you must do to "garden" your prayers. They are, 1. Ask for what you want, 2. Ask in conformity with God's will, 3. Ask in Jesus name, 4. Trust that God said yes when you asked, 5. Stick with it until the answer comes, and 6. Guard your prayer with thanksgiving.

I'll give you some details on these later.

Comments

[Ingrid]

Your lemon tree needs a lot of water!! A fertilizer spike once a year would help too. I have so many oranges they fall off the tree to the ground and that one is planted in a pot! When I forget to water it, it just won't do anything.

I also believe that when we pray for others well being God rewards us for that as well. In other words, if I pray for others healing and health I too will be blessed with my own healing and good health. Sorta like tithes and giving. We can give in so many ways, more than just monitarily. When we think outside our selves it opens up a whole new kind of blessing. You truly won't have room enough to receive it.

I like to make it a point, daily, to pray not only for myself and my family, but for others that I meet or see through out the day. Even if I am only asking God to protect a weaker person form the harsh and often cruel world.

When we pray for ourselves we will be blessed. I beleive that when we pray for others blessing God smiles down at us and says "job well done."

[Paula Quick]

I love this thread and the likening of prayer to gardening. Well done!

[Sister Mariam]

Thank you both for such lovely thoughts

I've started to call this prayer format my "Lemon Tree Prayers"