Imperial Valley Christian Center

15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. (Psalms 91:15)

7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: (Matthew 7:7)

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. (John 16:23, 24)

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. (James 1:5).

14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. (1 John 5:14, 15,)

So stop thinking about prayer like a crapshoot and start thinking about it like sure thing, but a sure thing that requires effort on our part. Stop thinking about God as the big slot machine in the sky who may or may not give you what you ask and realize that God wants to answer your prayers more than you want them answered, but recognize that it's not just up to God, you have a part to play as well.

Instead of thinking of prayer as the heavenly super lotto think about it instead like growing a garden. Everyone can have a beautiful yard or garden. Now when I say everyone I mean everyone. I live in the middle of the desert and people have beautiful gardens even in the desert. People can have beautiful gardens even in the middle of Manhattan. But guess what? If you don't have a beautiful garden it has absolutely nothing to do with the will of God, your garden is your responsibility. God doesn't walk down the street saying, "Yes, you get a beautiful garden… No, no garden for you…, No… No… No… Yes, have a beautiful garden." If someone has a beautiful garden it is because they have done what it takes to get one. If you have a beautiful yard it's because you have cooperated with the rules God has established for making yards beautiful. The same is true for prayer. It's not God's fault if you don't get your prayers answered. He's already done everything that needs to be done for you to receive answers to prayer. God so wants to answer your prayers that he sent his only begotten son to die on the cross so that you could have your prayers answered, now it's up to you.

Here's another way to think about it. I like to say, "Getting your prayers answered is as easy as losing weight." It takes a lot of effort to lose weight, but it can be done. Doing what it takes to get our prayers answered may require a great deal of effort as well, but it can be done. If we do the right things it is absolutely certain that we will lose weight. Did you ever notice that there weren't any fat people in Auschwitz? But even though we know this is true we're sill tempted to blame our failure on something other than ourselves. "I don't understand why I can't lose weight. I've been exercising a lot by walking around the block at least three times a week. I'm practically starving myself. My only real splurge is eating a half gallon of ice cream every night before bed. I can't understand why I'm getting bigger." That's how the conversation goes around our house anyway. It's the same thing with prayer. God has guaranteed to answer our prayers, receiving what we ask God for is a certainty, if we do our part. But when we fail to receive instead of looking at what we need to do differently, we start making excuses. We develop theories about prayer that let us off the hook but that, in effect, call God a liar. Some of us are so good at this that we're even able to explain prayer failures as signs of great spirituality. Our part may be hard. Most people may not be willing to do what it takes to get their prayers answered. But if we do our part, if we're willing to put in the effort, God guarantees we will receive.

Which brings us back to Mark 11:24:

24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (Mark 11:24)

You can clearly see, I've bolded it in case you can't, that Jesus is telling us that there is a condition we must meet in order for our prayers to be answered. There is something we must do in order to take advantage of God's answered prayer guarantee. There is a requirement we must meet in order to qualify for the "…and ye shall have them…" portion of this scripture. What is it we must do? What is the condition we must meet? What is it that qualifies us to receive what we ask for in prayer? When I ask this question in church people often say, " believe, " but that's only partly true. What is it we're supposed to believe?

…believe that you receive them…

To obtain what we ask for in prayer we must believe that when we prayed we received the thing. To put it differently, we must believe that there was a positive outcome to our prayer. We must believe that when we prayed God said "Yes" to your prayer. We must believe that as the result of our prayer we now have the thing. We must believe that in response to our request God has done everything necessary for us to have what we asked. As one pastor put it, "We have to believe that we got the thing when we prayed." Well if I got the thing, that means I now have the thing. So to believe that I received it means, believing that it's mine, believing that I have it, now.

Just to beat this drum a little more. Jesus isn't saying we must believe in God. That's a good thing but that's not what he's saying here. Jesus isn't saying that we must believe in prayer. Jesus isn't saying that we must believe that God answers prayer. He's not even saying that we must believe that God is going to give us what we ask. He's saying we must believe that God gave us what we asked for when we prayed. And since he says we must "believe" this it follows that our senses will disconfirm it. "Believing" that we have the thing is only necessary because our senses are telling us we don't have it. If our senses were telling us we did have the thing there'd be no need to "believe" we have it, we would have it. In other words, while our eyes are saying, "You don't have it," while our touch is saying, "Nope, nada, zilch, ziperoonee," while our reason is saying, "Just as I suspected," while all our friends are saying "You didn't get it." we must believe that we received the thing. I don't know about you but I would like to have my prayers answered, I'd like to get what I ask God for, so I want to learn how to do this, believe that you receive, thing.

This is where my question comes in, "How do I do that Jesus?  How do I believe that I have something I can't see. Clearly you're telling me that in order to get the thing, I have to first believe that I got it when I prayed, but how do I do that? You're saying that before I see the answer, before I can touch the thing I asked for, before I in anyway sense the results of my prayer, I must believe that I have what I asked for, but how? How do I do this? How do I believe? "

Next time I'll start showing you how to do this believing thing but for right now let me leave you with this. About four or five months before Becky was scheduled to graduate from UCLA she started looking for a job. UCLA had a nice placement center where you could look for different jobs which were being offered. She found one she liked at a CPA firm in Westwood. The job was walking distance from where we lived and paid what at the time seemed to us like a lot of money. So Becky prayed and asked God for that job. We were just baby Christians at that time and were just beginning to learn about the things of God. Becky made an appointment for an interview and she went. The interviewer seemed to really like her and told Becky she'd call her back and let her know. After a few days she hadn't heard from the lady so Becky gave her a call. The lady told here she was sorry, they liked Becky but they needed somebody who could start full time, right away and since Becky wasn't going to graduate for 4 months they had given the job to one of the other applicants.

Becky was pretty upset. She had prayed for this job. She had asked God for something based on his promise, what things soever you desire when you pray believe that you receive them and you shall have them. She had believed God and yet she had not received what she asked for. She came home and, great faith man that I am, I told her there were plenty of jobs around and to forget about it, it was their loss, not hers. Becky thought about that for a while but then she thought, "No I asked God for that job and he said if I believed that I received it I would have it, so that job is mine, I don't care what those people say, that job is mine!"

So for the next few days she'd go around telling me, "That job is mine!" and I'd go around telling her, "Forget about, there are other jobs." Well I don't remember how long it took, not long, maybe a week or two, but they called Becky back and told her that the other person had not worked out and they would give her the job on a part time basis until she could start full time. God is good!

Believe that you received the thing when you prayed and you shall have the thing, Jesus guarantees it!