How to receive from God

Ask according to His will

James 4:2,3 – “You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.”

Many Christians don’t receive from God simply because they don’t ask Him for anything! These people ask (or expect) to get their needs met through other channels. Here in these verses we see that even in the act of ‘asking God for it’ such people were self-centred, and focused on the wrong motives. James says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” This is clearly a reference to personal prayer. Therefore, to many of people it does not even occur to them to ask God for help of any kind.

These are the people who see themselves as self-sufficient, and able to take care of themselves. They have such a high regard of themselves that they think all their needs can be met through their own wisdom and efforts. Instead of turning to the giver of every perfect gift (James 1:17), they attempted to satisfy their desires through their own effort. At this point we should pause and think about our own situations. How many times do we go through difficult situations in our lives without actually asking God for help?

We may look back and think about how useful it could have been to ask God; but we never get before Him ‘face to face’ in the midst of our difficulties. Could it be that we think so much of ourselves that we are busy trying to “fix” our situation rather than depending on the God who created the universe. What irony that we spend much of our lives trying to “fix” difficult situations when it is God who has ultimate control of every situation. The One who upholds all things by the Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3).

Well, maybe some of you may have responded to James by saying you had in fact asked God! To this James also has a response: “You ask and do not have because you ask with wrong motives, so that you might spend it on your pleasures.” This means that some of you have prayed about your situation, but you still did not get the desired outcome. In 1 John 5:14 it says that “if we ask anything, He hears us in whatever we ask.” So the question is, why did some of you pray and the outcome that you prayed for did not happen?

We find the answer to the phrase that I left out of 1 John 5:14, and in James 4:4. John says if we ask “according to His will, He hears us.” The prayers of those we read about in James were the exact opposite of this. We learn from James that such people prayed the wrong motivation. Rather than praying according to God’s will these people prayed to fulfil their worldly pleasures. Here we find that word again - pleasures! Even in your prayers (that is those of you who do pray), you may be looking only to fulfil your worldly desires. If you happen to be one of these people you don’t understand what it means to pray according to the will of God. Do you?
So what does it mean to pray according to the will of God? I think we can glean a lot about what John means when he said to pray in the will of God from his earlier writings. In John 15: 16 he deals with this issue of prayer.

The logic of this verse is very important. Why would God be obliged to answer all our prayers? (Notice the parallel between this and 1 John 5:14) The answer is because we have been sent by Christ on a mission to bear fruit. This means that fulfilling Christ’s mission of fruit bearing, and asking according to the will of God, must be connected.

Let’s examine further in John 15:14… What we see is that the Father gave prayer to the disciples because Jesus had given them a distinct mission. God has designed prayer, and given it to us to use it for a definite purpose. Therefore, this must mean that prayer is designed to further the kingdom of God. Answered prayer is for the purpose of creating more and more God-glorifying actions. How many of our prayers are like those we read of in verse 3, motivated by the desire to fulfil our own worldly pleasures?

If you ever ask God for anything, make sure you have the right motive! Make sure it’s something that is going to bring Him all the glory! Make sure that it’s mentioned in His word and also contained in His promises! You may need to repent of prayer habits that are either nonexistent or self-centred, and then turn your prayer life into a means of accomplishing Christ’s mission – by asking for things that bring glory only to God!

John 15:7 (NIV) “If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”

God’s word reveals His will - His will and His word are one and the same! And many of you do not have because you do not ask according to the will of God…

1 John 5:14 (NIV) – “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

Besides cultivating a proper attitude in prayer, we also need to pray for the right things. Asking according to God’s will involves focusing on God’s priorities and not our own. The Bible not only informs us of specific things that are/aren’t God’s will – it also reveals what God’s Word says is important. The more your perspective is soaked in God’s Word, the more you will pray according to its priorities, and the more you will see God answer your requests (John.15:7).

When we don’t know God’s priorities, we will naturally pray for our own priorities - which centre around getting more pleasant circumstances, having people treat us the way we want to be treated, getting relief from irritating and painful circumstances or people, etc. If this is what dominates your prayer requests, your success rate is going to be pretty low and your motivation to pray is going to diminish.

So, try praying primarily for God’s priorities, and see what happens! Here are some examples:

Ask God for more practical insight into scripture so that you can become more godly in character (Psalm 119:33,34)
Ask God for better understanding of what God has given you in Christ (Ephesians 1:16-19) and how much God loves you (Ephesians 3:18-19) so you can mature spiritually.
Ask God for greater love for other people (1 Thessalonians 3:12) and better discernment on how to love them effectively (Philippians 1:9).
Ask God for opportunities to share your faith, and the courage and wisdom to make the most of those opportunities (Colossians 4:3,4; Ephesians 6:19,20).
Ask for God to expose sinful attitudes that are hurting you and others and dishonouring God (Psalms 139:23-24).
Ask God for wisdom to understand what He wants to teach you through the adverse circumstances He has allowed into your life (James 1:5).
Try also praying along these same lines for other people – John says God will answer such prayers!

Chris Demetriou, 21/06/2009