For many people, the new year tends to bring a renewed resolve to pray more faithfully. It’s fitting that our journey through the Sermon on the Mount lands us on this very subject in our first Titus 2 blog of the new year:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:7-11)
What will we ask our heavenly Father for in 2024? As we contemplate that question, let’s consider the four central beliefs we need when we come to God in prayer:
- The prerequisite of our prayers: Do we have the posture of an obedient child?
- The perspective of our prayers: Do we believe God is our Father—a good Father who loves us and wants to give us what is truly best for us?
- The prerogative of our prayers: Do we believe God has the power to accomplish whatever he desires?
- The persistence of our prayers: Do we believe God is really listening and working—even when we don’t see the answer right away?
We will focus on the first two questions this week.
The prerequisite of our prayers
Do we come to God with the posture of an obedient child? Parallel to Jesus’ declaration that our Father in heaven will give good things to those who ask him (v. 11) are passages like John 14:13-14: “‘Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.’” Later, in his first epistle, the apostle John elucidated that statement: “. . . if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14).
Asking in Jesus’ name means more than habitually tacking “in Jesus’ name” onto the end of every prayer. It means praying with the recognition that Jesus is our Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5), our Great High Priest (Heb. 4:14-16), our only way to the Father (John 14:6)—the only reason we have the right to approach him with our requests.
Praying “in Jesus’ name” also means praying in alignment with his will, not seeking our own selfish gain. James wrote, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3). But when the things we ask for are aimed at glorifying God, we can be sure he hears and responds.
Even as flawed human parents, we can appreciate the difference between the “asking and knocking” of an obedient child versus a disobedient one. When an obedient child taps on our bedroom door in the middle of the night, our initial annoyance melts away when he presents us with genuine needs. He’s not stalling his bedtime or defiantly disrupting our sleep; perhaps he’s sick and needs our comfort and help. The nature of his requests, paired with his humble and obedient disposition, inclines us to meet his needs with tenderness and love.
Our heavenly Father, too, inclines his ear to his obedient children. “If you have an earnest desire to pray well, you must learn how to obey well,” wrote E.M. Bounds, famous for his extensive books on prayer. “God delights in the prayers of obedient children. Requests coming from the lips of those who delight to do his will reach his ears with great rapidity, and incline him to answer them with promptitude and abundance.”
Bounds pointed out that when the terminally ill Hezekiah was told by Isaiah that he would soon die (2 Kings 20:1), he appealed to God to remember his former obedience, and God responded favorably, extending his life by 15 years (2 Kings 20:1-6).
“Obedient men have always been the closest to God,” Bounds continued. “These are they who have prayed well and have received great things from God, who have brought great things to pass.”
The perspective of our prayers
When we come to God as obedient children, we recognize that he is our Father—a good Father who loves us and wants to give us what is truly best for us. The vitality of our prayer life reveals whether we really believe that about him.
Theologians like A.W. Tozer, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and D.A. Carson have all believed the way we view God is fundamental to our Christian lives. Tozer said the way we think about God is the most important thing about us. Lloyd-Jones said failing to see God as Father is “the greatest defect in most Christian lives.”
Jesus’ decision to begin his teaching on prayer by telling his disciples to call God “Our Father” (Matt. 6:9) bears this out. This notion is where his teaching on prayer began, and that’s where it continues in today’s passage. Knowing that God is our good Father who wants good for us is the foundation of a praying life.
Carson wrote, “What is fundamentally at stake is man’s picture of God. God must not be thought of as a reluctant stranger who can be cajoled or bullied into bestowing his gifts (6:7-8), as a malicious tyrant who takes vicious glee in the tricks he plays (vv. 9-10), or even as an indulgent grandfather who provides everything requested of him. He is the heavenly Father, the God of the kingdom, who graciously and willingly bestows the good gifts of the kingdom in answer to prayer.”
What do we mean when we say God is good? Tozer put it this way: “The goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of good will toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly. By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and he takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people.”
Is that how we think of God? If not, we need to reorient our perspective. Sometimes, though, our faith in God’s goodness is tested by our circumstances. When we lose our possessions, our loved ones, or our health—or all three, like Job did—a cloud of grief can dim our view of God’s goodness. Does God care? we wonder. Can he even hear me? Is he strong enough to fix this situation?
Of course, we know the answer to each of those questions is a resounding “yes.” God’s character is not the problem. The problem, as the late missionary Elisabeth Elliot put it, is that we mere mortals can’t always tell the difference between bread and stones. We ask God for what we’re sure is bread, but God knows it’s actually a stone. And likewise, sometimes the bread he wants to give us looks to us like stones.
If you’ve ever denied your daughter an extra scoop of ice cream, suctioned your sick baby’s nose, assaulted your ailing toddler’s taste buds with amoxicillin, or turned down your teen’s request to do something “everyone else” is doing, you get it: sometimes the good a parent does seems terrible and nonsensical to the child. On a cosmic scale, our heavenly Father parents us the same way. He knows what’s ultimately best for our eternal well-being, and he loves us too much to give us anything less.
Corrie ten Boom, who helped hundreds of Jews escape the Holocaust in World War II, used to bring a piece of embroidery on stage with her when she spoke to audiences after her release from the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The front side of the fabric depicted a beautiful crown, while the back side was a chaotic mess of tangled threads. “We see now the wrong side,” Corrie said; “God sees His side all the time. One day we shall see the embroidery from His side, and thank Him for every answered and unanswered prayer.”
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash