Have Confidence When You Pray

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that’s if we ask anything in accordance to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him”.

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God wants us to have confidence, assurance, or a sense of certainty when we pray, too many times we pray with a hit-and-miss mindset, but we can have the same spirit of confidence that Jesus demonstrated when he prayed at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11).

Confidence is a result of experience and faith, whether ours or of some others, look at it again, God assures us that if we pray in accordance with his will, he has heard us.

The scripture says the ears of the Lord are open to the prayers of the righteous, God does not have a –working day, and neither does his government experience shutdowns.

What is the will of God? Broadly speaking the will of God is revealed to us in the scriptures, for us in the New Testament we can say that the will of God is as revealed in the teachings and life of Jesus, primarily and then of those that heard from Him.

For example, God wants all men to be saved, that is clear from the scriptures, (1Tim 2:1-4) healing and deliverance is also the will of God, He also wants to bless and prosper us (Math 4:7-25, 9: 35-36, III John 2 Isaiah 48:17 ).

When we pray in accordance with God’s will, we must have confidence, assurance or faith that He has heard and if he has heard then we know that whatever we have asked for we have, even when we have not seen the answer, we can rejoice in faith because our confidence is not in ourselves, the ‘intensity’ or ‘strength’ of our praying but in the One who has committed himself to answering our prayer, this is the secret of the faith of the saints of the bible.

This assurance or confidence is faith and the practical effect is that our words and actions correspond to our expectations. We cannot ‘believe’ that God has answered our prayers and behave as if he has not.

Remember what God said of himself through the mouth of Moses.

God is not a man that he should lie neither the son of man, that he should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Num: 23:19.

Thank God he is not a man, meaning he is not limited in ability, resource, power or desire, man is defined by one word limitation, God is defined by one word unlimited, in presence, power and knowledge.

Just the other day, I was reading from the 14^th chapter of the book of Matthew, the popular story of how Peter walked on water, and it struck me that in this brief account of this event, Peter had two prayers of his answered in a very short period of time.

You may want to look at it, (Math 14:22-32)

Peter first asked the Lord saying, ‘if you are the one ask me to come to you on the water,’ (talk of a difficult request, but Peter knew if it was Jesus it was no big deal) Jesus said to him ‘come’, we know what happened, Peter did the impossible, he walked on water, at least for a few seconds.

However, a few seconds later Peter in the midst of a crises cried out.

‘Lord, save me’, now look at this the bible says, immediately, Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him.

Is Peter anymore special than any of us? ‘Peter did not think so; he said we who have believed have received the same kind of faith that they received. (1Peter 1:2-3).

Jesus was quick to answer Peter requests; even the seemingly rash prayer of an impulsive disciple, this incident made a great impression on me and made the words of Jesus so real.

Jesus said

Ask and you shall receive, (Math 7:7) James amplified that statement by saying ‘Ask without doubting’ (James 1:5), that is ask with confidence. Seek and you shall find, to him that knocks shall the door be opened, this is God talking to you!

Don’t give up and don’t limit God by the size of your prayers, Peter asked for an ‘impossible’ thing and got an incredible answer, those that do big things and achieve great things have learnt to pray big prayers!

You can have what you ask for in prayer if you know what God’s word says about what you need and simply ……… Ask.

Shalom