When God Says No
John 14: 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it
One of the great promises of the Bible is the one that says “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed you can tell the mountain to move and it will. The story is told of the woman whose house was at the foot of a high mountain. She didn’t see the sun each day till it was fairly late in the morning. One day, she decided to move that mountain. Looking out through her window she commanded, “Move mountain!” The mountain did not move. “Move mountain” she shouted even louder. The mountain stood firm. “I knew it wouldn’t move”, she said in disgust as she walked away.
Don’t you just love the promise that is in today’s text? “Ask anything”. So what have you been asking God? Most likely nothing much. But maybe you have asked, and maybe you haven’t received what you ask for. Maybe, like the woman, you have got cynical, not expecting God to answer anyway. But that one text is not enough for you to use to understand how prayer works. There are good reasons your prayer is not answered sometimes. What are some conditions for answered prayer?
- Ask in faith. The woman didn’t believe that her prayer would be answered. She said so herself. There was no faith to work with.
- Have a clean heart. Ps. 66: 18 says that if I have iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.
- Avoid self-centredness. James 4:3 says that sometimes we ask and do not receive because ask in order to satisfy your selfish desires.
- Give God the glory. When we are self-centred, we also rob God of the glory of answered prayer
- Trust God’s heart. Never demand what you want, but leave room that if God sees that what you’re asking for is not best for you He can be free to decide not to give it to you. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego say, “Even if He chooses not to answer in the way I would like Him to, I still will trust Him”.
With this kind of attitude, you will tend to make the best requests and God will be delighted to answer, knowing that the answer will be for your good and for His glory.
“Dear Lord, help me to trust your wisdom and your love as I pray to you, knowing you will always give the best answer to my prayers, in Jesus’ name, amen.