God Wants To Answer Your Prayers
July 06, 2010
Most of us, kind of, have the idea that God’s willingness is the main obstacle to answered prayer. We think that if God only wanted to, He would answer. We think that if we can just figure out how to get God to want to, then we'll have it made. We end up figuring that if we were good enough, or if God liked us enough, or our request was important enough or spiritual enough, then that would cause God to want to give us what we ask. So we try to figure out how to be good enough, or how to get God to like us enough, or how to make our request seem important or spiritual enough, so that God will want to grant our petition.
But, here’s the great secret of answered prayer…
God wants to answer your prayers. It is his desire to help you in your time of need. He wants to deliver you when you are in trouble. He wants to heal you when you are sick. God wants to help you. He wants to give good things to you and your family. He even wants to answer those prayers that seem small and insignificant so that your life can be filled with joy.
Listen to what Jesus says about prayer… it’s so different from what most of us think about prayer.
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Ask and it shall be given you… Ask and it shall be given you … shall be … shall be … shall be … shall be … say that over several times. Now make it personal, “When I ask it is given to me.” Repeat it to yourself several times and think about it. Let it get down into your heart.
Jesus is revealing God’s attitude toward prayer. Jesus is letting us know how God feels about our requests for help. Jesus is tellings us that God desires to give us what we ask. Now before the enemy whispers in your ear, “He must be taking that out of context or missing something. Because that can’t be true,” let me show you that this is how Jesus always talks about prayer.
Matthew 18:19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
If two agree…it shall be done for them.
Matthew 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
All things … you shall receive. Not may receive, not might receive, not even probably receive, but you shall receive. Here’s the same verse from Mark’s Gospel.
Mark 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
What I want you to see is the certainty of God’s yes to your prayer.
John 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
If it wasn’t Jesus speaking we’d think this statement was presumptuous. Jesus doesn’t limit the promise to what God wills but to what the believer wills and he doesn’t stop there.
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.
Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give it you. No ifs, or buts, or loopholes, or extra-fine, 8 point, theological print in that scripture. Jesus adds the next verse for those people who are certain that these words could only refer to asking for spiritual things: "…ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." God wants to answer your prayers so that your life can overflow with joy. God wants you to be filled with joy. God wants you to enjoy your life and to that end promises to answer your prayers. It’s kind of hard to have fullness of joy when you can’t find a job. Your joy isn’t exactly overflowing when your kids are sick or having to do without. I suppose if you’re one of those super-spiritual religious people you could find joy in a diagnosis of cancer, you could see the joy in poverty, you could understand that lack is a reason for joy, but for us ordinary mortals God has promised to answer our prayers, so that our joy can be full.
Now let’s go back to Matthew chapter 7.
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Every one that asketh receiveth. God will give to every one that asketh. Every one! We tend to think that God only answers the prayers of super-special, extra-good, goody two shoes people, but Jesus says everyone that asketh receiveth. That, “everyone,” reminds me of the story of King Manasseh.
King Manasseh was the most evil king in the history of the southern Kingdom of Israel, i.e. the Kingdom of Judah. His story is found in 2 Kings 21 and 2 Chronicles 33. The Bible says that he worshiped idols, erected altars to other god’s in the temple of the LORD God, set up an idol in the temple of the LORD God, and may even have sacrificed his sons to the god Molech. The Bible sums up Manasseh with these words, “… He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger…” But that’s not the end of Manasseh’s story.
2 Chronicles 33:10 And the LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen. 11 Therefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon. 12 Now when he was in affliction, he implored the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, 13 and prayed to Him; and He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
God has such a strong desire to answer the prayers of men that He even answered the prayer of one of the evilest men in the Bible, when he repented and asked for help. According to Joseph Frankovic in his article, Repentance, God Inhales, the Jewish rabbis added some interesting details to the story of King Manasseh.
“The rabbinic retelling of the story relates how Manasseh, while incarcerated, prayed to all of his idols for deliverance, but to no avail. One day, however, he remembered a passage of Scripture that he had heard his father read in the synagogue. That passage came from Deuteronomy 4:25-31:
When you become the father of children and children’s children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God so
as to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you shall surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but shall
be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations, where the Lord shall drive you. And there you will serve gods, the work of man’s hands, wood
and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress and all these
things have come upon you, in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God: He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.
“Remembering these verses which he had heard in his youth, Manasseh reasoned that he might as well try calling out to God. If his fortune did not change after praying to God, Manasseh could assume safely that there is no difference between God and an idol. If, however, God answered his prayer, then he would repent and quit his idolatrous ways. So, Manasseh prayed, and as his prayer was ascending on high, the angels of the heavenly court quickly got to the windows and closed the shutters. They simply did not want Manasseh to have any chance of repenting and gaining future admittance through the heavenly gates.
“One can imagine the angels walking around the heavenly palace and trying to act as if they were not up to something. But God discerned that something was afoot, and he realized that Manasseh was supplicating him in prayer. Discovering that Manasseh’s prayers were rising up to heaven, but bouncing off the shutters, God became very restless. As each prayer hit the bolted shutters, God became more agitated. Finally, out of desperation, he ripped a hole through the throne of glory, and poof! Up the prayers came through the hole that he had dug through his throne. Greatly relieved, God happily accepted Manasseh’s prayers, and as a result of Manasseh’s turning toward him, God returned him to Jerusalem and restored his royal throne.”
I love this story. Manasseh was so evil the angels didn’t want his prayer to be answered but God's desire to help in time of need is so great, His desire to bless us is so powerful, God has such a desire to answer our prayers, that He knew something was wrong and tore open the floor of his throne so that he could hear and answer the prayer of one of the most evil men in the Bible.
Which is pretty good news for us, because if God would answer Manasseh’s prayer you can be certain that he will answer your prayer or my prayer. That’s why Jesus can say, "…for everyone that asketh receiveth…"
God wants to answer your prayers.
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