To Encourage You

1 John 3:22-23 “and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.”

In the verses above it seems to say that when we pray, we receive what we ask for because we keep Christ’s commandments and do what pleases Him.  In other words, if you want your prayers answered, just obey Jesus.  It’s a reward for obedience.  And to a certain extent, that is indeed true, for those who have faith believe that he rewards those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).  But I wonder if there’s not more here than at first meets the eye – like so much of the Scriptures.  Could it be that we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him because this is exactly what we pray for.  In other words, the results – obedience to Him – is evidence that our heart’s desire is just that – obedience – and so much so that we pray about it all the time. 

Prayer, then, isn’t just a case of “if I’m good to you, then you’ll be good to me – you’ll give me any goodies I ask from you.”   If that’s why we pray, then prayer is more me-centered than God -centered.  Is it possible that “obeying” God under these circumstances, is motivated by me getting the things I want, rather than on being the person that God wants me to be?  If we really want to obey God, if we want to glorify Him, we will find pretty quickly that it’s just not going to happen in our own strength. 

Obedience to God runs counter to everything that’s natural to us.  It’s the opposite of selfishness, greed, and other forms of sin which do come naturally.  The one who seeks to please God with his life realizes more and more that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).  In other words, if we are actually doing what pleases God, it is obvious that it is God at work in us, for our own strength is weakness in God’s eyes.  It is when we are weak, acknowledging our need of His help, that He imparts His strength to us (2 Corinthians 2:9), i.e., his supernatural strength to go against our own grain and the grain of the world, things that again, unfortunately, come only too naturally to us.  It is the person that knows he is “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17) without Him, that will pray the prayer of 1 John 3 above.  It is that person who will be asking for the strength that only God can give to bring glory to Him despite those weaknesses.  It is that person, who, though he or she is a believer, asks God all the time to “help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).  And it is that person that knows that anyone can love those who love them (Luke 6:32), but to love those who hate us, i.e., to love our enemies, is a God thing, which needs God’s strength (Luke 6:35).