Asking and Receiving
Do we experience the joy of answered prayer? If not, the one thing which is certain is that this our fault and not God’s. In today’s reading, James offers us two possible reasons why we are strangers to that joy.
First, often we simply do not ask. We try everything else before we go to God. Although we profess to believe that God has unlimited resources available which He is waiting to bestow on us, we fail to pray—and so we do not receive. O that our hearts and wills were gripped by the firm conviction that God really does hear and answer prayer!
If we truly believe that: (i) prayer links our helplessness with God’s almightiness; (ii) prayer can do anything which God can do, and He can do anything; (iii) prayer causes more havoc among the unseen forces of darkness than does any other weapon we possess; (iv) prayer changes, not only us when we pray, but actual events and situations; and (v) prayer is the answer to every problem which exists … then we will ‘ask’.
Second, when we do ask, we often ask for the wrong things and for the wrong reason. When at last we rouse ourselves to pray, our petitions can be self-centred and concerned with the gratification of our own desires. Yesterday we learnt that we can make known our requests to God yet receive nothing because of the manner in which we ask—in doubt and unbelief, 1:6–7.
Today we learn that we can make known our requests to God yet receive nothing because of the motive with which we ask—that we might ‘spend it in our own pleasures’, 4:3 lit.
We can ask for prosperity, for influence, for a position of leadership, for great knowledge, or for the gift of effective communication, and all solely to gratify our own pride and vanity. We need to constantly examine our hearts as to whether our aim in prayer is really God’s glory and not our own.
God looks at the intention behind our prayers. If our goal is our own pleasure and self-gratification, this proves that we have secretly set our heart on, not Him but the world, 4:4. If we ask God for something which we mean to take and lavish on His rival, are we really surprised that He refuses our request?
