Jesus said, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you may ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” What a wide-open promise that seems to be; almost too good to be true.
In fact, it seems so incredible and so out of sorts with the sovereignty of God that we have watered it down, added conditions, offered alternative explanations, and tried to re-align the parameters of the “whatever.”
Surely it doesn’t mean “whatever!” We have spent all of our effort debating the invitation or the promise. Maybe the key to understanding this promise is to re-consider the parameters of the condition of the promise. “Abide in me and let my words abide in you.” Possibly the promise is so unbelievable because living up to those conditions is so demanding. When we water down the outcome of the promise, we then must water down the conditions and before long we have no divine promise at all.
There is a great promise here! But there are also great requirements. We must continually ABIDE in Him and His words must fill up our lives, guard our hearts, proceed from our lips, and be engrafted into our souls. Then we may ask what we will and expect!
Question: What does abiding in Him look like?
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I am in total agreement with you about prayer, promises and conditions. After a few months of hit and mostly miss, I am back reading Andrew Murray's book on prayer. I am convicted and challenged that I am not walking (abiding) the walk of a devoted servant/child. I see that God's interests and honor are not my main concern. I am amazed at how easily I am distracted by things of this world. But I'm also encouraged knowing He wants me to "abide" and He will give me the grace to attain abiding. The motivation isn't to have "whatever I will", but to have His mind and will operating in me.
ReplyDeleteOne may ask what does the position of this blog then do to the sovereignty of God? Is it all up to me? If I just learn to abide in Him do I have the power to manipulate circumstances? I think not. It seems that when we truly abide in Him (the demanding call of this text), then a heart transformation takes place and our prayer becomes that of Jesus who in fact did abide in the Father completely, "not my will but thine be done." Learning to abide in Him continually brings a transformation of our will into His as we more consistently look not at the things which are temporal but the things that are eternal and our asking becomes tempered with the absolute assurance (that can come only to those who abide in Him) that He knows best and therefore humbly submits by saying, "not my will but thine." PK
ReplyDeleteIf a Christian truly ABIDES in Jesus, he will desire what He desires and will thus only, pray "according to His words". John 15:7 "If ye abide in me, and MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you".
ReplyDeleteThat way you can't ask amiss.
Bob Evans 8^)