One Big Request JOHN 15:16

Yesterday we looked at God’s promise in John 14:14. Too often people take the verse to imply, “If you ask anything, I will do it.” They overlook the most essential phrase: “in My name.”

Asking in Christ’s name has two meanings. First, believers are welcome to make requests that align with God’s purpose and plan. To do that, we need to ask Him if our prayers match His will. God has several ways of assuring followers that they are on the correct path. For instance, He may increase right desires or decrease wrong ones. Another possibility is that He will use His Word to redirect a Christian’s steps or confirm that he is going the right way. God always makes His will plain to the man or woman who seeks to know it.

Second, invoking Christ’s name means that we desire to glorify Him instead of ourselves. James gives this warning: “You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3). To understand that, let’s consider those who are trying to pray their way out of a financial hole. The question is, Does a person want to get out of debt so that he has more for himself or so that he can use the excess in God-honoring ways? Motives are apparent to God. He will not offer help until our heart is right.

In the name Jesus Christ, there is abundant power. However, calling upon Him in prayer is not a magic charm to get what we want. Rather, it is a signal that we are laying down our personal desires and our own way of getting things done. In so doing, we commit to follow God and bring honor to Him.

Songs from God

God, my maker, who gives songs in the night.

Job 35:10

Any man can sing during the day. When the cup is full, man draws inspiration from it. When money is in plentiful supply, any man can praise the God who provides an abundant harvest or sends home a loaded ship. It is easy enough for a tuneful harp to whisper music when the winds blow; the difficulty is for music to carry when no wind is stirring. It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight; but it takes a skillful singer whose song springs forth when there is not a ray of light to read by. No man can make a song in the night by himself; he may attempt it, but he will find that a song in the night must be divinely inspired.

Let everything go well, then I can weave songs, fashioning them from the flowers that grow upon my path; but put me in a desert, where no green thing grows, and with what shall I frame a hymn of praise to God? How shall a mortal man make a crown for the Lord without jewels? Let this voice be clear and this body full of health, and I can sing God’s praise: Silence my tongue, put me on a bed of suffering, and how will I then chant God’s high praises, unless He Himself provides the song? No, it is not in man’s power to sing when everything is against him, unless an altar-coal shall touch his lip.

It was a divine song from Habakkuk that filled the night when he sang, “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”¹ So, since our Maker gives “songs in the night,” let us wait upon Him for the music. Chief musician, let us not remain songless because we face affliction, but tune our lips to the melody of thanksgiving.

¹Habakkuk 3:17-18

Making Big Requests JOHN 14:12-15

Jesus Christ issued a bold statement when He said, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14). Since it is against the nature of our Triune God to break a promise (Titus 1:2), we know that the Lord will fulfill that pledge.

So when we make a big request and nothing happens, the problem isn’t with God. Believers are called to live a righteous life. The Lord won’t overlook spiritual laziness to give us what we want. He has two requirements for answering petitions:

• Approach God in complete dependence on Christ’s merits. The Savior’s blood paid for our right to enter the Father’s holy presence. His sacrifice at Calvary took away our sins and clothed us in righteousness, which allows us to stand unashamed before the throne. We don’t earn favor through works or get prayers answered because we are super-spiritual. God responds because His Son sits at His right hand, interceding for us.
• Approach God in holiness–that is, separated from all known sin. God said that He would not hear those who “regard wickedness” in their hearts (Ps. 66:18). If He were to answer prayer when we are willfully living in sin, then He would be sanctioning our transgression. Therefore, believers must turn away from their wrongdoing before making big requests.

God is always faithful. He is willing to give you what you need and to bless you richly besides. But this is no something-for-nothing offer. The Lord demands righteous living from His followers. Those who live according to God’s will can trust Him for anything they ask in His Son’s name.

Resist Deceit

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.

1 Samuel 15:22

Saul had been commanded to completely wipe out all the Amalekites and their cattle. Instead of doing so, he preserved the king and allowed his people to take the best of the oxen and of the sheep. When called to account for this, he declared that he did it with a view to offering sacrifice to God; but Samuel met him at once with the assurance that sacrifices were no excuse for an act of direct rebellion.

The sentence before us is worthy to be printed in letters of gold and to be displayed before the eyes of the present idolatrous generation, who are very fond of making a show of obedience but who utterly neglect the laws of God. Never forget that to keep strictly to the path of your Savior’s command is better than any outward form of religion; and to pay attention to His precept is better than to bring animals or other precious things to lay upon His altar.

If you are failing to keep the least of Christ’s commands to His disciples, I urge you to be disobedient no longer. All the pretensions you make of attachment to your Master and all the devout actions that you may perform are no substitute for disobedience. “To obey,” even in the slightest and smallest thing, “is better than sacrifice,” however pompous. Forget the Gregorian chants, sumptuous robes, incense, and banners; the first thing that God requires of His child is obedience; and even if you gave your body to be burned and all your goods to feed the poor, if you did not listen to the Lord’s commands, all your formalities would profit you nothing.

It is a blessed thing to be teachable as a little child, but it is a much more blessed thing, when one has been taught the lesson, to carry it out to the letter. How many adorn their temples and decorate their priests, but refuse to obey the word of the Lord! My soul, do not share in their deceit.