Post by Laurentius on Sept 22, 2005 16:05:05 GMT -5
"I was once speaking to a woman who had been a professed Christian, but had given it all up. I asked her why she was not a Christian still. She replied, because she did not believe the Bible. I asked her why she did not believe the Bible.
“Because I have tried its promises and found them untrue.”
“Which promises?”
“The promises about prayer.”
“Which promises about prayer?”
“Does it not say in the Bible, ‘Whatsoever ye ask believing ye shall receive’?”
“It says something nearly like that.”
“Well, I asked fully expecting to get and did not receive, so the promise failed.”
“Was the promise made to you?”
“Why, certainly, it is made to all Christians, is it not?”
“No, God carefully defines who the ‘ye’s’ are, whose believing prayers He agrees to answer.”
I then turned her to 1 John 3:22, and read the description of those whose prayers had power with God.
“Now,” I said, “were you keeping His commandments and doing those things which are pleasing in His sight?”
She frankly confessed that she was not, and soon came to see that the real difficulty was not with God’s promises, but with herself. That is the difficulty with many an unanswered prayer to-day: the one who offers it is not obedient.
If we would have power in prayer, we must be earnest students of His Word to find out what His will regarding us is, and then having found it, do it. One unconfessed act of disobedience on our part will shut the ear of God against many petitions."
RA Torrey, How to Pray
"and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight"
1 John 3:22
“Because I have tried its promises and found them untrue.”
“Which promises?”
“The promises about prayer.”
“Which promises about prayer?”
“Does it not say in the Bible, ‘Whatsoever ye ask believing ye shall receive’?”
“It says something nearly like that.”
“Well, I asked fully expecting to get and did not receive, so the promise failed.”
“Was the promise made to you?”
“Why, certainly, it is made to all Christians, is it not?”
“No, God carefully defines who the ‘ye’s’ are, whose believing prayers He agrees to answer.”
I then turned her to 1 John 3:22, and read the description of those whose prayers had power with God.
“Now,” I said, “were you keeping His commandments and doing those things which are pleasing in His sight?”
She frankly confessed that she was not, and soon came to see that the real difficulty was not with God’s promises, but with herself. That is the difficulty with many an unanswered prayer to-day: the one who offers it is not obedient.
If we would have power in prayer, we must be earnest students of His Word to find out what His will regarding us is, and then having found it, do it. One unconfessed act of disobedience on our part will shut the ear of God against many petitions."
RA Torrey, How to Pray
"and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight"
1 John 3:22