A Nugget from New Life Network
(excerpts from Dr. Larry Ollison)
Scripture for the Day (July 24, 2018)
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14-15).
When we pray, we must pray the will of God. Only when we pray His will, will He hear us. In fact, we are clearly told in 1 John 5:14 that we can ask anything according to His will, and He will hear us. Then in verse 15 we are told that if He hears us, He grants us the request. But we can never forget that He only hears our request if we ask according to His will. What is the will of God? His will is found in His Word, the Holy Bible. If His will is not readily apparent by reading His Word then we pray in the Spirit and He will reveal His will to us.
Through many years as pastor, I have had countless meetings with people who were going through trials in their lives. Some of these trials were financial, some were emotional, and some were physical. When I would ask them if they had prayed concerning their situations, many times I would get the reply, “Yes, but I’m just not sure what God is going to do.” Then I would usually ask them, “Why is it that you don’t know what God would do?” And most of the time it was because they had not searched the scriptures to find God’s will or they kind of knew in a way what they thought God’s will was. But because of bad teaching or being subject to church doctrines that were wrong, they did not have a firm understanding of God’s plan for their life.
God is a good God and every good and perfect gift comes from Him (James 1:17). God wants to bless His children and even sent His Son, Jesus, to redeem them from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). Jesus came to preach good news to the poor and that good news is freedom from poverty. He preached healing to the sick and restoration to the brokenhearted. So when it comes to certain things, we know the will of God and when we pray we can pray in our understanding. There is no need to pray in tongues in those cases. Why? Because we know His will.
For example, if you are sick, we know that God said in Psalm 103:3 that “I am the God who heals thee.” So when we pray, we pray to be healed.
If the problem is poverty, we know that God takes pleasure in the prosperity of His saints, so we pray for prosperity (Psalm 35:27).
If the problem is a broken heart or an emotional issue, we know that the Scripture says God sent Jesus to the earth and was anointed to heal the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18).
In all of these things, we can pray in the understanding (in our own language) with confidence because He has promised them to us, so obviously they must be His will for us. He wouldn’t promise us something unless He desired for us to have it. For the answers that are not obvious from His Word you can pray in tongues and the Spirit will reveal the answer to you.
For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. (1 Corinthians 114:14)
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)
