ANSWERED & UNANSWERED PRAYER

HOW GOD ANSWERS PRAYER

If you abide in Me, and My Word abides in you,

ask whatever you wish,

and it will be given you.

John 15.7

I no longer call you servants,

because a servant does not know his master's business.

Instead, I have called you friends,

for everything that I learned from My Father

I have made known to you.

You did not choose Me, but I chose you

and appointed you to go and bear fruit--

fruit that will last.

Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in My Name.

This is My command: love each other.

John 15.15-17

When we are seeking to obey the commands of Jesus Christ as the Lord of our life, the Father will grant whatever it is that we need for doing so.

The promise is, "Ask, and you will receive."

"Seek, and you will find."

"Ask," "Seek," and "Knock" are found in Luke 11.9-13.

When we do not know what to do in a specific situation, the promise is, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who gives generously to all." (James 1.5)

In Jeremiah 37.1-10, we are told of Zedekiah asking Jeremiah, "Please pray to the Lord our God for us." (v. 3)

In vv. 6-10, Jeremiah brings back God's answer, beginning, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Tell the king...'" (In both v. 6 & 9)

In other words, when Zedekiah asked, Jeremiah asked in his behalf. God gave Jeremiah a very specific answer for Zedekiah. The answer to the king came as God's own words were given to the prophet. Zedekiah got an answer directly from God. (Probably not what he wanted to hear, but he got a direct, specific answer from God.)

God stands ready to answer our prayers just as directly, and instantly.

God the Holy Spirit is just as ready to answer our prayers as He did Zedekiah's.

Zedekiah's prayer was answered by God through the prophet Jeremiah.

Our prayers are answered by either a prophet or an apostle. Just this simple:

1. What is your question or problem?

2. Read the Scripture, prophets and apostles, for God's answer.

Incredibly, God the Holy Spirit stands ready to answer any prayer we have if we only "Ask...and Seek...and Knock."

Just as incredibly James points out that we do not have answers "because you do not ask God." (James 4.2)

All our prayers are answered--"Whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." (Matt 21.22)

The foolish part is, we don't listen; we don't look; we don't seek.

It's like we have unopened mail from God with a complete answer to everything we can possibly ask or even think of (Ephesians 3.20-21; Jer. 33.3), and we never open it to read and see what God has said to us.

We read a single verse or two in a devotional book and then the commentary. We read a paragraph in a lesson book and then the lesson.

We "study" a commentary with a few verses scattered along the way.

We do not read to Bible with a hunger for words that will give life and change life within us.

We "pray for others" and have no idea about what God wants to tell us about others as He sees them and what He wants us to tell them, like Jeremiah told Zedekiah.

And the saddest part is that we do not realize that all God's answers are in the Book He has given us. He has given all we can possibly want, ask, think. Every spiritual gift of the kingdom of heaven is available to us--right now, right here. There are unlimited promises for everything that we need for life and godliness--2 Peter 1.3-4.

God wants us to know and have every spiritual blessing that is in Christ Jesus--here, now, right here, right now--Ephesians 1.3.

How incredible can it be that when we ask God, we do not seek what He has to say in response to us!

Jeremiah did seek, and he found. And he recorded God's answer to Zedekiah so we could understand: God answers prayer--instantly and directly.

For our answers we have to read what God has given to the prophets and apostles. If we read God's words, looking for what God has spoken to others in the past, the Holy Spirit will speak to us from those answers to others just as clearly as He did to Zedekiah.

All possible answers for all people in all generations are available from the Scriptures we have before. God's words are now completely complete for all needs of all generations of all people.

Here. Now. Instantly. Clearly.

FORGETTING THE PAST

PEACE WITH THE PAST

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize

for which God has called me heavenward

in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3.13-14

Genesis 26:1-22 reports on "what is behind" Isaac, the heir of God's promises and purposes for mankind in and through Jesus. God has promises and purposes for us, too. We need to understand how God clears up our past so we can press on toward the goal and prize He has called us to. (Cf. Eph. 1.17-19)

Genesis 26:23-26 shows us how God freed Isaac from some pretty serious failures and sins against God (unbelief), Abimelech and his entire tribal clan (lying--when men of God lie to unbelievers, great and serious consequences comes to God's people and the unbelievers around them!), to his wife (how shameful can a man be!), and to those who depended of him (the rest of his family and his servants).

Trouble was brewing on many levels.

What a mess Isaac created! How could a man live with this? How does God untangle it?

First, God comes in Grace!

I'm sure there was plenty of guilt and shame, fear and anxiety and depression that filled Isaaac's every waking hour and nightmares daily. No man of God can do what Isaac had done and not be tormented with conviction and fear of judgment.

At just the right moment, God stepped in with redeeming, delivering Grace!

Grace comes to us in revelation of God's gloriousness.

Understanding this is vital.

When we are at the end of our rope and cry out to God,

He intervenes with deliverance and renewal, based on some new revelation of Who He Is and What He Does as it applies to us in our disaster and catastrophe.

God tells us Who He Is to us and What He Is Going To Do for us.

This this restoration to Grace and Fellowship is accompanied by affirmation of promises and purposes and with new revelation for us to follow by Faith and Obedience.

That night the Lord appeared to him and said,

"I am the God of your father Araham.

Do not be afraid, for I am with you.

I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants

for the sake of My servant Abraham."

Genesis 26.24

Think on these things--Phil. 4.8.

They were written for your sake.

"Everything that was written in the past

was written to teach us,

so that through endurance

and the encouragement of the Scriptures

we might have hope."

Romans 15.4

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace

as you trust in Him,

so that You may overflow with hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Romans 15.13